THE ARAB REVOLTS: Causes, Dynamics, Effects

13 April 2012, 9:30 AM – 6 PM
Columbia University, Schermerhorn Building, Room 501
Enter Gates on 116 and Broadway or Amsterdam

9:30 AM Opening Keynote
Rashid Khalidi (Columbia), ‘America and the Arab Revolts’
*Moderated by Bashir Abu-Manneh (Columbia)

11 AM First Panel
Gilbert Achcar (SOAS, London) ‘Roots and Dynamics of Arab Revolt’
Asef Bayat (Illinois) ‘Revolution without Movement, Movement without Revolution-Again’
Mona El Ghobashy (Barnard) ‘The Politics of Counter-Revolt in Egypt’
*Moderated by Marwa El Shakry (Columbia)

2:15 PM Second Panel
Jason Brownlee (Texas) ‘Antecedents of the Tunisian Revolt’
Gershon Shafir (UCSD) ‘Tahrir in Tel-Aviv?’
Lisa Wedeen (Chicago) ‘Ideology in the Political Present: Notes from Syria’
*Moderated by Nadia Abu El-Haj (Columbia)

430 PM Closing Keynote
Discussion with Rashid Khalidi & Gilbert Achcar on The Question of Palestine
*Moderated by Bashir Abu Manneh(Columbia)

Sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies
Co-sponsored by:
Middle East Institute
Trans-Arab Research Institute (TARI)
Heyman Center
Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies

Locating Tolerance: The Conflict over the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem

Event Recording: Please click on the images below to load videos:

Introduction & Opening Remarks: Rashid Khalidi

David Theo Goldberg

Saree Makdisi

Eyal Weizman

Wendy Brown

Conference Speakers Include:

Wendy Brown, Heller Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
David T Goldberg, Director, University of California Humanities Research Institute & Professor of Comparative Literature, UCI
Rashid Khalidi, Co-Director Center for Palestine Studies & Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia U.
Saree Makdisi, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCLA
Eyal Weizman, Director of Centre of Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London

A branch of the Los Angeles based Museum of Tolerance is being built in the heart of Jerusalem on part of the site of the city's oldest Muslim cemetery. Legal suits, protests, claims and counter claims have ensued. What does it mean to build a museum borne of the memory of the Holocaust and designed to teach lessons about the importance of "tolerance" over a graveyard in the face of the protests of the descendants of the interred and, moreover, in a country in which it is prohibited to disturb Jewish graves?

On the one hand, the conference will consider questions particular to the case at hand: the nature of the ongoing contest over land and historical rights in Palestine and Israel. More specifically, the lawsuits and the political organizing against locating the Museum of Tolerance over the site of the Mamilla Cemetery puts in stark relief the hurdles Palestinians face in gaining recognition for claims to injury in the face of opponents whose own claim to moral authority derives in significant part from the history of the Holocaust. On the other hand, "tolerance" increasingly has emerged as a way of framing and legitimizing anti-Muslim sentiment and forms of politics. What insights might we gain from thinking through this particular instance of the limits and blind-spots of an ideology of "tolerance?"

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM, Opening Remarks: Rashid Khalidi
12:30 - 1:30 PM, Break: Light refreshments will be served
1:30 - 4:00 PM, Panel Discussion: David Goldberg, Saree Makdisi, & Eyal Weizman
4:30 - 6:00 PM, Closing Remarks: Wendy Brown

Sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Department of Anthropology, and the Middle East Institute.

Monday, 11 April 2011, 11:00 AM ~ 6:00 PM
Room 1501, International Affairs Building, Columbia University
420 West 118th Street, NY, NY 10027