CURA Hosts Event on Aftermath of the Arab Uprising
(Credit: Ben Curtis/AP)
[Updated April 8, 2021] On April 3, 2021, the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA), an affiliated institute of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, hosted a virtual event exploring how the Arab Uprising altered the Middle East and North Africa. The event took place on 10th anniversary of the Arab Uprising and was organized by Shamiran Mako, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School.
The event, titled “Progress and Stagnation After the Arab Uprisings,” brought together two panels of scholars, the first of which featured Melani Cammett, Professor of International Relations at Harvard University and Acting Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; F. Gregory Gause, Professor and head of the International Relations Department at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service; Valentine Moghadam, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern University; Bassel Salloukh, Associate Professor of Political Science at Lebanese American University; and Shamiran Mako. This session was moderated by Noora Lori, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the
Pardee School.
Panelists of the first session discussed the socio-economic impacts of the Arab Uprising in North Africa and the Middle East, how the United States’ presence in the Middle East left a political vacuum that laid the foundation for the uprisings, the role of gender in these social movements, and how the Arab Uprising can be used to frame more recent civil rights protests in the region. As global social and anti-state movements continue, the scholars discussed how the Arab Spring might influence these future movements.
The second panel featured Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Associate Professor of Political Science at Hobart & William Smith Colleges; Bassam Haddad, Associate Professor at George Mason University; Elizabeth Nugent, Assistant Professor at Yale University; and Francesco Cavatorta, Associate Professor of Political Science at Université Laval/Laval University. The session was moderated by Shamiran Mako.
The second session explored the role of women in global peacebuilding, repression during and after the Arab Uprising, and democratic governance in the region.
A recording of the event can be viewed below.
Founded in 1985, CURA was the first interdisciplinary research center in the United States focused on religion and global affairs. CURA seeks to build a community of scholars from BU and beyond with a shared interest in religion and world affairs. CURA joined the Pardee School of Global Affairs in 2015 and continues to sponsor collaborative research projects, public lectures, and gatherings for faculty, graduate students, and others, and to support the Pardee School’s curriculum in religion and global affairs. Learn more about CURA here.