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Mapping Academic Shifts and Intersections
Laila Shereen
Published in 2005
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Summary:
CCAS 30th Symposium Undertakes Critical Review of the Field of Arab Studies.
For two days, twenty scholars along with audience members (and media cameras in the backdrop) took to in-depth critical inquiry of the field of Arab Studies in the Copley Formal lounge at Georgetown University. Mindful of the post 9/11 climate and the attacks on the academic study of the Arab world that have come both from inside and outside the academy, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies’ 30th anniversary symposium explored the influences of academic research in public policy discourse on the region, as well as comparing epistemological and ideological bases of academic as opposed to strategic and security-oriented policy research.
Such an academic project—a rigorous debate on the production of knowledge and ideas on the Arab world—is, by nature, a review. As the organizers of the conference dedicated this year’s symposium to the memory of Dr. Hisham Sharabi, they planned it with similar academic rigor and engagement as in the previous review of the field, organized 15 years earlier by Dr. Sharabi himself.
“Intellectual Horizons, Institutional Parameters,” led the conference, offering a bird’s-eye view of the field, looking at its long-term history and impact, intellectual trends and currents, institutional connections, infrastructure and future challenges.
Perhaps the most critical theme was the relevance of time and place in history. Almost every speaker alluded to the current political climate, where the US is engaged on a war on terrorism and US troops occupy Iraq. In this post 9/11 environment, as Dr. Shami noted, “academia becomes mobilized and drawn into the public sphere in particular ways and for specificpurposesat times of crisis, indicating that there has been for some time a felt need for an assessment of the politics of the field and its relationship to US power and hegemony.” Professor Binder cautioned the field to respond to present challenges with vigor and a systematic empiricism, and Professor Gran invited us to examine the present moment in a larger historical context, as he analyzed the development of the field,inpoliticalcontext,overthe past century or more.
Another recurring theme was the question of the proper relationship
between academy and policy, examined in the second panel, “Arab Studies in Public Policy Debates,” with a focus on the place of the academy, think tanks, and government institutions in these debates. All the speakers acknowledged a chasm between the formulation of policy and academia. Ambassador Walker offered a rather grim assessment on the level of engagement: “it is really very depressing when administrations are unwilling to stand their policies up to competition in the marketplace of ideas.” he suggested that “academics and think tanks think a lot more about the audience and style their work to suit if they want to play a part.” The tensions between academic approaches and those of think tanks were a central theme for others as well.
In the third panel, "Comparative Approaches to Key Issues,” the relationship between political agendas and scholarly trends was very apparent in the case studies of terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and political Islam. All three speakers, Professors Byman, Smith, and Voll, confronted questions of scope: when does the “Arab World,” the “Middle East,” or the “Islamic World” make sense as the unit of analysis? John Voll reminded the audience that “what we talked about this morning was not particularly Arab Studies, but Middle Eastern Studies.
The following day, also reflecting on the scope inferred by the Center’s name, Dr. Abukhalil pointed to the importance of accepting “'Arab' as a unit of analysis” and alluding to the dynamism of the region by naming it “contemporary” studies.
At the end of the firstday,apanelfocusedonthescholarlyandpolitical contributions of the late Edward Said. Perhaps this panel was indeed partly “hagiography” as Professor Kramer later was to characterize it, but all three speakers, Professors Gendzier, Rubin, and Tucker, tackled the central question of Said’s impact, namely how and why his eclectic and open-ended critique reshaped the field. As Professor Rubin articulated,“the difficulty identifying or even locating a method lies partly in the demystifying, explanatory powers of Said who, in Orientalism, draws a series of tightly critical circles around the discursive object of the so-called Orient; yet insofar as his strategy is one of elaboration, it persistently denies objectifying itself as a method that can repeated and rehearsed, like some sort of chorus, over and over again.”
“The Legacy of Edward Said” panel was not the only one where legacy was apparent. In her paper, Professor Leila Hudson stated outright that she would use a genealogical approach and “in doing this, reinforce legacies of Sharabi and Said, offering not just criticism of self, but from the periphery.” As Professor Gran iterated, “I take my subtitle—'a subject about which we know little' from a subject referring to American context in Arab Studies—from a remark Hisham Sharabi on that occasion made on roughly the same subject at the last conference.”
As many of the issues were unpacked on the firstday,onthesecond day of the conference, participants went further. “Arab Studies in the Cross-hairs” led the day by airing of critiques and attacks on Arab studies. While Professors Hudson and Abukhalil identified improvements in the field, they both suggested the need for more intellectual rigor—in language training, interdisciplinary understandings, and engagement with public discourse. Professor Kramer took an outsider's approach, stating that the conference had a “lack of deep understanding, full of embellishment” and with “none of that rigorous self-critique that Hisham Sharabi propelled.” As he stated, “I am here to plant the seed of doubt.”
After much debate among scholars based in the United States, we turned an ear to perspectives from the Arab World. In the panel “Arab Studies: Arab Perspectives,” Professor Abdulla offered epistemological insights into Gulf studies and discussed the importance of doing local research based on indigenous rather than externally imposed agendas, while Professor Al-Sayyid invited western political scientists to think of their colleagues based in the Arab World as full collaborators in the production of knowledge. Professor Tamari concluded with discussion of the interesting window on the Arab self provided by examining autobiography in the Arabic literary tradition.
In the final panel, “Contending Paradigms” we were reminded again by Professor Mohammed Bamyeh that, alternately, “Arab and Islamic history themselves offer distinct features for understanding globalization.” And that, as Professor Leila Hudson distilled, although seemingly outdated, “modernization paradigms still play a part in our focus on the microcosm of change, and in understanding 'counter-realism.'” Professor Hatem, on the other hand, eschewed the modernization paradigm as she examined the discourses of Islamic feminism.
After seven panels, the organizers held a session for an open discussion with the panelists. As all twenty participants lined up together, one could hear echoes: Byman’s “call for cross-fertilization” and Ambassador Walker saying, “time, travel and money should no longer be a legitimate excuse for isolation.”
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