Author: aml13008

Sir William Luce Fellowship

Sir William Luce Fellowship

Durham University

The Sir William Luce Memorial Fund welcomes applications for the position of Sir William Luce Fellow which will commence in April 2017.

The Sir William Luce Memorial Fund was established to commemorate the long and distinguished career of Sir William Luce GBE, KCMG, DL (1907-77) in the Middle East during the era of the transfer of power.

The Fellowship is awarded annually to a scholar at post-doctoral level, diplomat, politician, or business executive, working on those parts of the Middle East to which Sir William Luce devoted his working life (Iran, the Gulf states, South Arabia and Sudan), and is hosted by Durham University during Easter term (24 April – 23 June 2017). The Fund may give some preference to proposals linked to the University’s Sudan Archive. The Fellowship, tenable jointly in the Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies and Trevelyan College, will entitle the holder to full access to departmental and other University facilities such as the University Library, including the Sudan Archive, and Computing and Information Services. It also carries a grant, accommodation and all meals for the duration of the Fellowship. The Fellow is expected to deliver a lecture on the subject of his or her research which will be designated ‘/The Sir William Luce Lecture’/, and should be cast in such a way as to form the basis of a paper to be published in a special edition of the Durham Middle East Papers series.

Applicants should send a CV, an outline of their proposed research and contact details for two referees, preferably by e-mail, by Thursday, October 6th to:

The Secretary
Sir William Luce Memorial Fund
Durham University Library
Palace Green
Durham DH1 3RN
United Kingdom
E-mail: luce.fund@durham.ac.uk

For further information about the Luce Fund, please click here.

Narrating the Arab Spring

Spring 2016 Course:
CLSC 3888
W 2:00 – 4:45PM
In English
Professor: Amara Lakhous
Amara.lakhous@gmail.com
Click here for the flyer.

The Arab Spring was a political, social, and cultural earthquake. In a short period of time, four dictators were forced out of office: in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. While each case must be studied separately, the very fact of their overthrow is proof that the Arab world is not homogeneous. In Tunisia and Egypt, the uprisings were successful because certain elements of modernity, including a strong civil society, existed. Tunisia, for example, promulgated its first constitution in 1861; Egypt formed its first parliament in 1866, just five years after the unification of Italy. The situation differed in Yemen, Libya and Syria, societies based on tribes and clans, without the necessary elements of the modern state. Our study will encompass and confront these realities.

Our attempt to understand the Arab Spring will be based on the narratives of writers, filmmakers,artists, photographers, cartoonists, musicians, etc. We shall attempt to analyze the Arab Spring within its three essential time frames: before, during, and, especially, the aftermath. We shall examine causes and effects: What role did corruption play in the advent of the Arab Spring? Why was non-violence understood as essential to its success? Why did the violence of the military and the fundamentalists result in the failure of these revolutions? Why did certain Arab countries “miss” their Arab Spring?