UC Forum Examines Turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa

After decades of simmering opposition, authoritarian regimes are erupting in revolution – governments that have been longtime allies of the United States. Why now? How did it begin? Why is it spreading? What does it mean for U.S. relations? University of Cincinnati researchers examine the unfolding events in the forum, “Arab Uprisings: Revolution in Egypt, Tunisia and Beyond.”

The forum, free and open to the public, will take place from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Monday, Feb. 7, in UC’s Tangeman University Center (TUC), Rooms 400 A-C.

The session will end with a 45-minute question-and-answer session.

The event will feature the expertise of the following faculty:

Elizabeth Frierson – Frierson is a UC associate professor of history and former director of Middle Eastern Studies for the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences (A&S). She has lived in the Middle East and is a published researcher on the history of politics, censorship, women and cities in the Middle East. Frierson decided to pursue her career in Middle East studies after Sadat’s assassination in 1981 pointed out the wide gap between U.S. perceptions and reality in the region. She serves on the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Committee for Africa and the Middle East. She has been an invited speaker and workshop participant around the world on topics regarding events in that region. In the forum, she will examine the broader implications of the events in Tunisia and Egypt for the region as a whole.

Robert Haug – Haug is a visiting assistant professor in the UC Department of History where he teaches world history and a variety of courses on the history of the Islamic world, including courses on the Crusades and Afghanistan. He has also taught comparative religions and Arab culture. His research interests focus on the medieval Islamic world with a special interest on Iran and Central Asia, the development of Islamic institutions, and the history of jihad as both a religious doctrine and practice. Haug's discussion will explore the Muslim Brotherhood and their potential role in a democratic Egypt, as well as compare the Muslim Brotherhood with other Islamist political organizations that have achieved power through elections.

Ethan Katz – Katz is a UC assistant professor of history and is a historian of modern Europe, with specialties in the history of modern France and Francophone North Africa as well as modern Jewish history, and a secondary expertise in the history of political Islam. His research interests include inter-ethnic relations; religion and the secular in modern life; the interplay between colonial regimes and anti-colonial politics; and national and sub-national identity. Katz has written widely on these issues and has lectured extensively in the U.S., France and Israel. His presentation will examine the history and current legacies of the colonial encounter in North Africa, focusing on Tunisia, but also discussing the past and present in Algeria, Morocco and Egypt.

Vanessa Walker – Walker is a 2009 Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in U.S.-foreign relations, with a secondary emphasis on modern Latin American history. Her work focuses on human rights and the role of non-government actors in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly during the Carter administration. She spent the 2004-05 academic year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a George Mosse Fellow, exploring human rights, religion and social movements from a comparative perspective. Walker will explore the current uprisings in the context of longstanding tensions between the Unites States’ staunch advocacy of democracy and human rights and its alliances with dictatorships.

“Arab Uprisings: Revolution in Egypt, Tunisia and Beyond” is sponsored by the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences Office of the Dean, the UC Department of History, Department of Political Science and the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center.