How East Meets West Today: Economies and Cultures of the Middle East in a Global Era
A one-day conference organized by Asli Bali, UCLA
Friday, February 12, 2010
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
School of Law, Room 1457
UCLA
By tradition, and especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Middle East is portrayed as distinct and apart from the rest of the world, especially the West. But the region is more closely tied to the world than ever before: What happens there affects what happens here, and vice versa. This is most obvious in the domain of war and peace, but it is also true on the level of economics and culture. This one-day conference will consider the interconnectedness of the Middle East with the rest of the world, and particularly the West, in the context of globalization and global crisis in the 21st century.
Welcome and Introduction
10:00 – 10:30 am
PANEL I: Interwoven Economies
10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Asli Bali, Acting Professor of Law, UCLA; moderator
The War Economy in Iraq
Pete Moore, Associate Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University
Economic Roots of Iran's Long, Hot Summer of 2009
Arang Keshavarzian, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University
Hawalas: Financing Radical Islam or Survival?
Khalid Medani, Assistant Professor of Political Science, McGill University
Beyond Eurabia: Muslims in European Politics, Economy and Culture
Paul Silverstein, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Reed College
Lunch Break
12: 30 pm - 2:00 pm
PANEL II: Connected Cultures
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Susan Slyomovics, Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA; moderator
Culture and War in Iraq
Rochelle Davis, Assistant Professor of Arab Studies, Georgetown University
Tehran Political Posters Then and Now
Shiva Balaghi, Cogut International Humanities Fellow, Brown University
Arabs and Muslims in Mainstream American Culture
Louise Cainkar, Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Studies, Marquette University
The Global Kaffiyya Craze
Ted Swedenburg, Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas
Cost: Free and open to the public
For more information please contact
Amy Bruinooge, Center for Near Eastern Studies
Tel: (310) 825-1181
cnes@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/events
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies
