Significance and Timeliness
In the last four years there has been an unprecedented expansion at
Canadian Universities in the
field of Middle East
and Islamic Studies. Canadian Universities have attracted over twenty
new academic hires from Canada,
the US, the
Middle East and Europe. This expansion
reflects the growing significance and importance of this field in light
of recent immigration from the Middle East, issues
regarding the place of religion in Canadian society as well as public
interest and anxiety about the nature of Islam. After
September 11, 2001
and again after the bombings in London
this summer, our field of expertise has found itself in the limelight of
media attention and in high demand to explain, mediate and advocate. As
international academics few of us are fully prepared to individually
meet these urgent challenges for Canada
and no collective stocktaking of Canadian Middle East research and
expertise has ever taken place. A weekend of brainstorming, critical
reflection and policy- and research-agenda formulations will yield an
urgently needed inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of our field
as well as of long-term understanding and future strategies of higher
education in Canada.
At the same time, the academic study of the Middle East
and Islam has come under unprecedented attacks from pressure groups
outside the university after
September 11, 2001. This has raised the issue of the threat of
‘counter-terrorism’, the autonomy of universities and academic freedom,
more particularly in the US.
This worrying trend also challenges Canadian academia to assume a
leadership role in upholding academic integrity in research and teaching
the Middle East and Islam.
On the one hand, Canadian
universities are responding to these trends and issues by providing the
venues and the platforms necessary to understand a vital region whose
issues continue to dominate global politics and daily news. On the other
hand, they are responding to a phenomenal surge in university students'
interest in the Middle East, its religions,
politics, cultures and languages- an interest that promises further
expansion and additional recruitment. As a result, Middle Eastern and
Islamic studies as a field of public education are being invigorated
internationally by this expansion into Canadian public consciousness,
dialogue and learning.
Objectives
The implications of these trends are
twofold. First, Canadian academia has the potential to push the field
into new directions and provide a more prudent environment than is the
case in the United States.
At a time when 'the clash of civilizations' constitutes a dominant
political and intellectual paradigm in the US, less apprehensive and
more inclusive approaches are much needed not only for the sake of
Canadian academia and society but also crucially for the sake of a
better relationship between the cultures and religions globally.
Second, the
general public's interest in the Middle East and
Islam - and the ability of Canadian academia to respond to it - can mark
a turning point in the history of those diasporas in
Canada
whose origins are from the Middle East. Far from
being considered or perceived as distant apparitions in foreign lands,
communities of Middle Eastern origins are a part and parcel of Canadian
everyday life. Thus today, Middle East languages rank among the fastest
growing unofficial languages in Canada.
More than ever, Canada
is involved in the Middle East economically,
diplomatically and militarily. A deeper understanding of the different
political, social and intellectual trends in the Middle East
and sources of social and religious tension among its different groups,
allows Canadian academics in their various positions to contribute to
the promotion of far-sighted internal and external policies that involve
Middle Eastern communities.
The proposed three-day workshop
focuses on all of these questions, is extremely timely and lays the
foundation for excellence in Middle East and
Islamic studies at Canadian research and teaching institutions for
future generations. At that it is thought as the first of regular
meetings of Canadian Middle East and Islam scholars. By hosting this
symposium, UofT is set to open a new chapter in Middle East Studies in
North America, in its long-term goals of curriculum
diversification and interdisciplinarity as well as in its relationship
with Muslim diasporas in Toronto.
An event of this magnitude will also pave the way for better publicity
and more successful fundraising among potential and hitherto hesitant
donors in these communities.
The
proposed three-day workshop will, for the first time, bring in contact
with each other an entire generation of young international scholars of
Middle East and Islamic studies at Canadian Universities from Simon
Fraser to Dalhousie. The workshop is hosted by Jens Hanssen at the
Departments of Near and Middle East Civilizations and History at the
University of Toronto
(UofT) and Historical Studies at UT Misssissauga, in collaboration with
the Institute for Women's Studies and Gender Studies, the Center for
Diaspora and Transnational Studies and the Center for the Study of the
United States at UofT. Amal Ghazal (UofT/Dalhousie)
and Thomas Kühn (Simon Fraser) are his co-organizers. The workshop takes
place at UofT from Friday, November 4 to
Sunday November 6, 2005. These dates situate the workshop
appropriately between the "Academic Freedom - Post 9/11" conference
organized by the Harry Crowe Foundation in Toronto on October 28-30,
2005, and the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of
North America (MESA) held in Washington D.C. on November 19-22, 2005.
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