Seminars

The Middle East

  • Founded
    1971
  • Seminar Number
    525

The seminar usually meets once a month during the academic year. A prominent expert from here or abroad, commonly from the Middle East, leads a four-hour discussion at each meeting, assuring ample time for serious dialogue on focused issues. The seminar provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences by Middle East experts in various spheres—business, banking and investment, federal service, the foundations, the media, and the liberal professions as well as academia. The seminar has become a medium for carefully defined and informed evaluation of stubborn problems in a region that symbolizes mounting instability and proliferating crises. Detailed minutes are circulated to participating members for use without attribution to uphold the confidentiality of the discussion.

Chair
Professor Gary Sick
ggs2@columbia.edu

Associate Chair
Professor Lawrence Potter
lgp5@columbia.edu

Rapporteur
Jude Ali Jordan
jaj2208@columbia.edu

Meeting Schedule

07/15/2021 Online Meeting
2:00 PM
The Saudi-UAE Rift and its Implications for Politics and the Oil Markets
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University
Abstract

Abstract

Historical Overview


Karen Young , Columbia University
Abstract

Abstract

The Political Economy of the Rivalry


Jason Bordhoff, Columbia University
Abstract

Abstract

Oil and the Implications for Energy Markets


Moderator: Gary Sick, Columbia University

08/29/2021 Online Meeting
3:00 PM
Afghanistan
Barnett Rubin, New York University




09/11/2021 Online Meeting
5:00 PM
Al-Qaeda, 20 Years Later
Nelly Lahoud, New America




10/26/2021 Online Meeting
12:00 PM
Why should Iran be so important?
Ali Ansari, University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK)




11/16/2021 Online Meeting
11:00 AM
The Battle for the Soul of Islam
James M. Dorsey, National University of Singapore




12/09/2021 Online Meeting
5:00 PM
The End of History in the Middle East
Jon Alterman, Center for Strategic and International Studies




01/27/2022 Online Meeting
5:00 PM
Iran and the bomb: Where are we? How did we get there? What may happen next?
Barbara Slavin, Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and George Washington University




02/17/2022 Online Meeting
5:00 PM
Competing Trends in the Middle East and the Prospect of Regional Solutions
Ross Harrison, University of Pittsburgh




03/22/2022 Faculty House, Columbia University
5:00 PM
The art of the Middle East
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, Sciences Po (France) and Columbia University




04/14/2022 Faculty House, Columbia University
5:00 PM
After Saddam: Reminiscences of a Diaspora Iraqi in the Making of a New Iraq
Fareed Yasseen, Former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States