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1 comment - Last on 07/02/2009

Introducing ASMEA

We’d like to draw our readers’ attention to a new membership organization that shares ideals with the NAS. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) was formed two years ago in response to the growing academic interest in these two areas. ASMEA seeks to address Middle Eastern and African studies through open inquiry and pursuit of the truth, and it upholds rigorous standards of scholarship. 

Bernard Lewis, Princeton’s Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies, is chairman of ASMEA. Here is a video of Professor Lewis’s keynote address at the 2008 ASMEA conference, in which he situates the academic study of the Middle East in a historic context. And below is a flyer with information about this year’s ASMEA conference:
 
 
 
ASMEA
Association for the Study
of the Middle East and Africa
 
 
ASMEA cordially invites you to attend our
Annual Conference
 
The Middle East and Africa:
Historic Connections and Strategic Bridges
October 22-24, 2009
Key Bridge Marriott Hotel
Washington, DC
 
RSVP to:
202-429-8860
 
Advance Registration Rates
Full/Associate Members - $50 (
Register now)
Student Members - $30 (
Register now)
Non-Members - $150 (
Register now)
 
The second annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) will be held October 22-24, 2009 at the Key Bridge Marriott in Washington, D.C.
 
Entitled, The Middle East and Africa: Historic Connections and Strategic Bridges, the conference will feature presentations and roundtables that demonstrate the inter-relationships between the two regions over time with special emphasis on the historical, political, economic, religious, security and cultural links between them.
 
Along with the academic paper presentations and roundtables, ASMEA's 2009 conference will feature special presentations by:
 
·         ASMEA Chairman Bernard Lewis
·         Dennis Ross, Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Gulf and Southwest Asia
·         John Bolton, Former United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
 
To learn more, please visit: http://www.asmeascholars.org
 
The association has put out a call for papers to be presented at the conference. Only ASMEA members may present papers and the due date for submitting a proposal is today, so if you are interested, act now! ASMEA is also looking for other conference participants—panelists, referees, and discussants—and is offering a limited number of grants to cover hotel costs for full-time graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and professors.
 
We believe many of our members and readers would like to see reasoned inquiry applied to Middle Eastern and African scholarship, and we invite you to visit the ASMEA website to learn more about this important organization.

Add a Comment

I wholeheartedly join the NAS in its praise of ASMEA. With BernardLewis at its helm, the organization cannot but stand for exceptional rigor in research and scholarship. Of course, having Victor Davis Hanson aboard is an additional feather in ASMEA's cap. 

I read only one of Bernard Lewis' books (Islam and the West, 1993) and a couple of his essays. Yet his assertion that "those who enjoy freedom have a moral obligation to use that freedom for those who do not possess it" became a personal leitmotif in my efforts to navigate the dark halls of the postmodern university. Bernard Lewis' intellectual honesty is a reminder that we must confront the revisionist tendencies so common in today's academy, particularly with respect to Middle Eastern studies. 

I am delighted that the NAS has brought ASMEA to our attention.      


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