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CMES

Newsletter #34

March 2023

A collage of three photos. One photo of the white CMES building on a lawn full of white and blue spring flowers. One photo of a groups of people sitting around a table eating lunch at smiling at the camera. One photo of small dishes holding the seven symbolic foods and spices of the Persian "haft-seen" table at a Nowruz celebration.

Photos: Linda Eitrem Holmgren

Message From the Director

Spring greetings from the CMES team!

The safest sign that spring has arrived are the surrounding gardens at CMES, which presently are covered with beautiful flower beds! It is also at this time of the year the CMES staff is busy preparing new exciting research applications on the Middle East with submissions to Swedish and European funding agencies. CMES also has two open calls for project proposals and writing retreats with deadlines shortly approaching.

CMES recently organized two festive events with the public inaugural lecture of the Olof Palme visiting professor Raphael Cohen Almagor (funded by the Swedish Research Council), and a wonderful Nowruz celebration with CMES staff and our Arabic language students. Coming up in April are two highly topical research seminars on heritagization and conflict transformation in Haifa, and the prevention of extremism and terrorism in Jordan. You are all warmly welcome to attend! Please also submit panel and paper proposals to the next SWEMENA conference held in Stockholm 24-25 August.

Finally, CMES will be back in Almedalen this summer as part of the Lund University program. This year, we are organizing two highly topical panels on climate change in the Middle East and on Israel at the crossroads for democracy and peace.

Wishing you happy spring holidays! Stay tuned on the CMES website, social media and by subscribing to the Newsletter.

Karin Aggestam

CMES Director and MECW Coordinator

Latest Research News

Open Calls: Writing Retreats and Project Proposals

2 writing retreats during the autumn of 2023. Deadline: 31 March 2023 (Today)

1 new research project will be funded, starting in September 2023 and running for three years. Project proposals should focus on novel interdisciplinary research related to the MENA region. Application deadline: 28 April 2023

The calls are open to researchers with a doctoral degree employed at LU.

SWEMENA Conference 2023: Call for Papers and Panels

The second annual SWEMENA conference is hosted by Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies on 24-25 August 2023. Contributions are invited from doctoral students and researchers in Sweden working on topics related to the MENA region (including Turkey & Afghanistan). Deadline for abstracts: 13 April 2023.

The text: "Ethics, Justice, Peace and Social Responsibility" by Raphael Cohen-Almagor, 6 March 2023. Olof Palme Inaugural Lecture. A photo of Raphael Cohen-Almagor giving a lecture.

Inaugural Lecture of Olof Palme Visiting Professorship

On 6 March, 2023 the Visiting Olof Palme Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor gave his inaugural lecture. The event was organized by CMES, the Department of Political Science and the Swedish Research Council with opening remarks from CMES Director Karin Aggestam, Pro Vice-Chancellor Per Mickwitz and the Secretary General of the Swedish Research Council Stefan Svallfors.

A photo of Erdogan and Kristersson walking side by side.

“Sweden Must Stand Up to Turkey in the Conflict Over Values”

Does negotiating Sweden's NATO membership mean that the government is prepared to tinker with basic human rights and values? According to two political scientists, one of them CMES scholar Pinar Dinc, there is a risk of this happening. Read the article here.

Photo: Adem Altan/AFP

The poster for the film "Paradise" with the text "paradise" and a photo of a man walking through a burning landscape.

Exhibition and Film: The World is Burning 2.0 + Paradise

The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies in collaboration with Doc Lounge invites you to a presentation of the photographic exhibition “Wildfires in the Anthropocene” and screening of Alexander Abaturov's documentary film “Paradise”, followed by an open discussion. The event will be held on 18 April 2023, 17:00-20:00 at the Pufendorf Institute (Biskopsgatan 3, Lund). CMES scholars Lina Eklund and Pinar Dinc will be participating. Registration is required to attend.

Turkey: Recommended Reading

The city library in Stockholm has collected reading recommendations concerning Turkey from several experts, among them CMES scholar Pinar Dinc. Pinar recommends a list of books, such as Soner Çaǧaptay's Erdogan's empire: Turkey and the politics of the Middle East (2020), Imren Borskuk et al. (eds.) Authoritarian neoliberalism and resistance in Turkey: construction, consolidation, and contestation (2022), and Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul (2017). Find out more here.

Upcoming Events

13 April: Heritagization & Conflict Transformation - From Toxic to Curative Heritage of Conflict

CMES Research Seminar with Annika Björkdahl, Department of Political Science, Lund University. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30.

20 April: Preventing Extremism and Terrorism in Jordan

CMES Research Seminar with Ann-Kristin Jonasson, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30.

4 May: Scripture and Scholarship - The Swedish Search for Ancient Egypt, 1677–1739

CMES Research Seminar with Joachim Östlund, Department of History, Lund University. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30.

11 May: Prospects for Democracy in Iran – Challenges and Opportunities

CMES Research Seminar with Arvin Khoshnood, Department of Human Geography, Lund University. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30. Please note: registration is required to attend.

25 May: Drought and Altruism – Insights from Surveys of Refugees from Iraq and Syria

CMES Research Seminar with Stefan Döring, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30.

8 June: Borderization of Palestine

CMES Research Seminar with Nina Gren, Department of Social Anthropology, Lund University. At CMES and on Zoom, 13:15-14:30.

Recent Publications

"Evapotranspiration in Semi-Arid Climate: Remote Sensing vs. Soil Water Simulation"

Authors: Ronny Berndtsson, Hedia Chakroun, Nessrine Zemni, Ali Benhmid, Vetiya Dellaly, Fairouz Slama, and Fethi Bouksila

"The pursuit of peace with the Palestinians: interviews with Ehud Barak"

Authors: Raphael Cohen-Almagor

The cover of the journal "Agricultural Water Management"

"Modernization in agricultural water distribution system for aquifer storage and recovery – A case study"

Authors: Ronny Berndtsson, Mohsen Hosseini Jolfan, S. Mehdy Hashemy Shahdany, Saman Javadi, Sami Ghordoyee Milan, Aminreza Neshat and Hamed Tork

"Holocaust Denial and the Abuse of Education"

Authors: Raphael Cohen-Almagor

The cover of the journal "Conflict, Security and Development".

"‘2011 unshackled the space’: spatial analysis of diverging youth political agency in the Syrian conflict"

Authors: Sarah Anne Rennick

"Returning to Traditional Solutions in the Face of Climate Challenges"

Authors: Lina Eklund and Hossein Hashemi

Find Out More About Middle East Research at Lund University

Lund University conducts Middle Eastern research of international quality and with a societal relevance across and between faculties. To find out more about the Middle East research being conducted at LU in Science, Medicine, Engineering, Humanities and Theology, and Social Sciences, please visit our website.

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About This Newsletter

This is a newsletter from the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University. With the objective to provide an overview Middle Eastern studies undertaken at Lund University, this newsletter is intended to give updates on research, events, and other related news. It is also intended to form a window towards the society, showcasing important Middle Eastern research conducted at Lund University.

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