SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies
Lecture: “Israel Studies in the Arab World.”
BY
Dr. Johannes Becke (Heidelberg University)
November 18 2015 – 5.30pm
Brunei Gallery, Room B104, SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG.
In Western academia, Israel Studies could be differentiated into four main paradigms – Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, settler-colonial studies and postcolonial studies. This lecture discusses the research agenda of exploring an additional paradigm – Israel Studies as enemy studies and post-enemy studies; a literature with a long, yet under-researched tradition in the Arab World. In fact, the small academic field is split into two epistemic communities which rarely interact, often enough for legal reasons prohibiting any formal contact: While Israel Studies in Western academia is struggling with the accusation of ‘hasbara’ (propaganda) studies, in wide parts of Arab academia the discipline was established with the explicit research interest of ‘knowing your enemy’. The lecture provides an overview of the institutions and paradigmatic shifts that characterize Israel Studies in the Arab world – stretching from the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut to the al-Ahram Center in Cairo and from the newly-established Center for Israel Studies in Amman back to the Land of Israel/Palestine, namely the Ramallah-based MADAR, the Palestinian Forum for Israel Studies.
Bio: Johannes Becke serves as assistant professor at the Ben Gurion Chair for Israel and Middle East Studies, Centre for Jewish Studies Heidelberg. After graduating from Freie Universität Berlin with a PhD in Political Science, he received a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford.
This event is free and there is no need to book
Convenor: Dr. Yonatan Sagiv (js108@soas.ac.uk)
Online Israel Studies Bulletin Board 