Middle East Studies Program

Events

• Feb

  23

  Fluid Frontiers February 23, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm Ingraham 206
  

  Seçil Binboğa (University of Minnesota) will discuss how US influence expanded through Turkey’s airspace between 1951 and 1954, crossing borders to counter the spread of communism.

• Feb

  27

  Gaza and the US Academy: Scholasticide and Educational Resilience in Palestine February 27, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Sewell Social Sciences Bldg., Room 8108
  

  Abdel Razzaq Takriti (Rice University) is a historian of anticolonialism, revolutions, intellectual and political currents, and state formation in the modern Arab world

• Mar

  02

  America's Middle East March 2, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm Ingraham 206
  

  Marc Lynch (George Washington University) details the United States’ disastrously failed approach to the post–Cold War Middle East, where aspirations for US leadership and a calm region have only produced war, instability and humanitarian catastrophe.

• Mar

  16

  Jāl Mythmaking: Embodied Indigeneity in the Marshlands and Coasts of the Persian/Arabian Gulf March 16, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm Ingraham 206
  

  Hanan Al-Alawi (UW-Madison) will explore how the marshland inhabitants of Iraq and coastal communities of southern Iran reimagine Indigeneity through mythmaking practices and embodied interactions with land and water.

• Apr

  15

  Managing Byzantine Heritage in the Modern World: The Development of Byzantine Studies in Turkey April 15, 2026 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Curti Lounge, 5233 Mosse Humanities
  via Zoom

  Professor Durak will discuss how Byzantine studies in Turkey have developed from the late Ottoman era to today, focusing on the roles of state and non-state actors, as well as Turkish and foreign scholars.