Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Case's Rosenthal Center sponsor
international conference during month-long celebration of the humanities
CLEVELAND, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After nearly 18 months of planning,
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and the Samuel Rosenthal Center
for Judaic Studies of Case Western Reserve University will convene 21
distinguished scholars who will examine and explore academic strategies to
balance teachings on the Middle East on college campuses when they meet for
"Postcolonial Theory and the Middle East" at Case, October 29-31.
October is National Humanities Month in the United States, and the
scholars gathering at Case cross many disciplines, such as religion,
philosophy, and anthropology, among others.
"The interdisciplinary conference examines the effects of postcolonial
theory on academic and public perceptions of the Middle East and its peoples,
societies, cultures, politics and conflicts, and will assess whether the
underlying premises and assertions are sound and justified, and, thus, whether
the resulting perceptions of the Middle East are valid," said Philip Carl
Salzman, conference chair and professor of anthropology at McGill University.
SPME is an independent, faculty-driven, grassroots organization with
approximately 700 members, representing 200 campuses worldwide. Its mission
is to inform, motivate and encourage faculty to use their academic skills and
disciplines on campus, in classrooms and in academic publications to develop
effective responses to the ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic and
anti-Zionist debates that work against peace.
Salzman has organized the conference with Rabbi Peter Haas, Case's Abba
Hillel Silver Chair of Religious Studies and director of the Rosenthal Center
for Judaic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. Edward Beck is the
president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and from Alvernia College
and Susquehanna Institute.
Presenters will be:
Jonathan Adelman, University of Denver, "What Does Postcolonialism Do to
Russian and Chinese Studies?"
Andrew Bostom, Brown University "Negating the Legacy of Jihad in
Palestine"
Phyllis Chesler, C.U.N.Y., "The Palestinianization of the Feminist
Academy: Stalinism, Postmodernism, and Islamic Apocalypse Now"
David Cook, Rice University, "The Muslim Man's Burden: Explaining the
Great Islamic Conquests in the Light of Postcolonial Theory by Contemporary
Arab and Muslim Intellectuals"
William Irons, Northwestern University "Yomut Turkmen Ethnography and
Postcolonial Theory"
Efraim Karsh, King's College London "The Missing Piece: Islamic
Imperialism"
Irfan Khawaja, College of New Jersey "Realism, Nominalism and
Orientalism: Edward Said on the Essence of Islam"
Herbert Lewis, University of Wisconsin, "The Influence of Edward Said &
Orientalism on Anthropology"
Irwin Mansdorf, Jerusalem Project for Democracy in the Middle East, "The
Psychology of Post-Colonial Revisionism in the Arab World: An Analysis of
Occupation and Right of Return"
Ed Morgan, University of Toronto, "What Really Was Said: History as
Advocacy"
Ronald Niezen, McGill University, "Postcolonialism and the Utopian
Imagination"
Philip Carl Salzman, McGill University "Postcolonial Theory and Middle
Eastern Tribes"
Gideon Shimoni, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Postcolonialism and the
History of Zionism"
Gerald Steinberg, Bar Ilan University, "Postcolonial Theory and the
Ideology of Peace Studies"
Ilan Troen, Ben-Gurion University and Brandeis University, "De-Judaizing
the Homeland: Academic politics in rewriting the history of Palestine"
Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University, "Mistaken-ness and the Nature of
the Post, the Ethics and the Inevitability of Error in Theoretical Work"
A volume based on conference papers and an introduction by the three
editors-Salzman, senior editor; Adelman and Richard Landes from Boston
University, associate editors-will be published and widely distributed for
both the general public and the academic disciplines related to Middle East
studies.
The symposium has support from Case's Samuel Rosenthal Center, Jewish
Community Federation of Cleveland, Divine Family Foundation, Scholars for
Peace in the Middle East and private donors.
For information, contact: Beck at ScholarsforPeace@aol.com or
717-576-5038; Salzman at pcsalzman@aol.com, or Haas at peter.haas@cwru.edu.
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Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, Case is distinguished
by its strengths in education, research, service, and experiential learning.
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