ɫƵ Tangier Global Forum presents “The Past and Future of the Arabs”
Facing over-population, under-education, economic stagnation and repressive governments, Arab citizens in the Middle East and North Africa have grown increasingly pessimistic about their future. This pessimism played a role in mobilizing citizen action in the 2011 Arab uprisings, only to be further reinforced by the collapse of order that has followed the fall of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, and the breakdown of state control in Syria and Iraq.
A lecture at the University of New England’s Tangier Global Forum will examine this malaise in the Arab world and consider how the lessons of modern history might serve as the basis for a better future. Scholar Eugene Rogan will present “The Past and Future of the Arabs” on Thursday, February 16, at 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. EST) in the auditorium at ɫƵ’s Tangier Campus. The lecture will be live-streamed to students and faculty on ɫƵ’s two Maine campuses and to viewers around the world at www.une.edu/tgf/live.
Rogan is a professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford and director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He is the author of several books, including works that have been translated into 15 languages. His book The Arabs: A History was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times and The Atlantic Monthly, while his Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire received the Albert Hourani Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the Fuad Köprülü Prize of the Turkish Studies Association. His latest book, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, was published in 2015.
To learn more, visit: http://www.une.edu/calendar/2017/past-and-future-arabs .
This lecture will be the fifth of the academic year for the Tangier Global Forum. It follows lectures that have addressed the birth of monotheism, how the lessons of the Enlightenment might help solve some of today’s biggest challenges, what the French Moralists can teach us about the need for greater moderation in our discourse, and the degree to which America’s founders succeeded in navigating the competing interests of majority rule and individual liberty.
The forum’s five lectures this spring will culminate with a visit by former Maine Senator George Mitchell, who authored the agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998, and served as President Obama’s special envoy to the Arab-Israeli peace process from 2009 to 2011. Mitchell will offer his appraisal of the prospects for peace in the Middle East.
About the Tangier Global Forum
Founded by Moroccan-American scholar Anouar Majid, the University of New England’s Tangier Global Forum capitalizes on the millennial legacy of Tangier as a border city to encourage discussion and critical examination of the burning issues facing the global community. American, Moroccan, European and other thinkers from around the world give lectures, lead seminars and conduct workshops to shed light on -- and provide new insights into -- histories and cultures that are critical to a better understanding of our human condition today. All events are free, open to the public and streamed live around the globe. Live translation into one or more languages is also available.
To apply, visit www.une.edu/admissions