Program

Sunday, February 6, 2022 – 11:00 pm - 12:30 pm (Doha time) (in-person and online)

Welcome:

• Hassan Hakimian, Conference Chair and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Department, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HBKU)
• Amal Al-Malki, Founding Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HBKU)

Keynote Speaker:

• Moderator: Amal Al-Malki, Founding Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HBKU)
• Marwan Kraidy, Dean and CEO, Northwestern University in Qatar, and Professor of Communication and the Anthony Shadid Chair in Global Media, Politics and Culture at Northwestern.

Afternoon Panels: Sunday, February 6, 2022 (Online)

Panel 1: 4:00 - 5:30 pm (Doha time)

“Transnational Dynamics and International Politics: How are Evolving Big Power Politics Impacting the Middle East”

Chair: Marc Owen Jones, Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

Moderator: Steve Wright: Associate Dean for Student Affairs, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HBKU)

• Courtney Freer, Emory University and LSE:
  • “Transnational Movements in a Globalised World: Regional Rivalries and Ideological Competition?”
• Abdulla Al Etaibi, Lecturer, International Affairs Programme, Qatar University:
  • “Changing Regional Alliances and Patterns of Behaviour”

5:30-6:00pm B R E A K

Panel 2: 6:00-7:30 pm (Doha time)

“Analyzing the MENA Social Dynamics Using NLP and Big Data Methods”

Chair: George Mikros, Professor in Digital Humanities, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

Moderator: Wajdi Zaghouani, Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

• Kareem Darwish, Principal Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI):
  • “News Consumption in Time of Conflict: 2021 Palestinian-Israel War as an Example” http://kareemdarwish.com/files/
• Muhammad Imran, Senior Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI):
  • “Two Billion Multilingual COVID-19 Tweets with Sentiment, Entity, Geo, and Gender Labels” https://mimran.me/
• Walid Magdy, Reader, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh:
  • “Atheists versus Theists: Religious Polarisation in Arab Online Communities” https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wmagdy/
• Eric Atwell, Professor of Artificial Intelligence for Language, School of Computing, University of Leeds:
  • “Understanding the Quran: A Challenge for Artificial Intelligence” https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/staff/33/dr_eric_atwell

Monday, February 7, 2022

Panel 3: 4:00-5:30 pm (Doha time)

“Society, Cities, and Space in the MENA Region”

Chair: Sophie Richter-Devroe, Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

Moderator: Carol Fadda, Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

• Amy Kallander, Associate Professor in History, The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and Karem Said, Lecturer in Religious Studies, Department of Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Houston:
  • “Embodied Masculinities: Navigating Manhood and Identity in Tunis and its Periphery” https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/hist/Kallander,_Amy_Aisen/; https://www.uh.edu/class/ccs/people/karem-said/
• Nazanin Shahrokni, Assistant Professor of Gender and Globalisation, Department for Gender Studies, LSE:
  • Social Inclusion through/despite Physical Segregation? Gender and Politics of Space in the Islamic Republic of Iran https://www.lse.ac.uk/gender/people/people-profiles/faculty/Dr-Nazanin-Shahrokni
• Hiba Bou Akar, Assistant Professor in the Urban Planning program at Columbia GSAPP:
  • The Doubleness of Beirut’s Ruins: Between a Past War and Wars Yet to Come https://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/518-hiba-bou-akar

5:30-6:00pm B R E A K

Panel 4: 6:00-7:30 pm (Doha time)

“Knowledge and Power in Palestine: The Quest for Statehood and the Marginalization of Rights”

Chair: Dana Olwan, Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)

Moderator: Samia Al-Botmeh, Dean of Faculty of Business and Economics, Birzeit University https://www.birzeit.edu/en/faculty-staff/samia-al-botmeh

• Leila Farsakh, Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts, UMass Boston:
  • “Knowledge, Power and the Palestinian Quest for Statehood: Self-Determination Re-examined” https://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/faculty/leila_farsakh
• Adam Hanieh, Professor of Political Economy and Global Development, University of Exeter:
  • “The Political Economy of State Formation in Palestine: A Regional Perspective” https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/iais/staff/hanieh/
• Susan Akram, Clinical Professor of Law, Boston University:
  • “International Law and the Concept of Nationality: Revisiting Palestinian and “Jewish” claim to National Citizenship” https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/susan-m-akram/

Closing Remarks: 7:30-7:35 pm (Doha time)

• Hassan Hakimian, Conference Chair and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Department.