Northwestern University Middle East Forum (NUMEF)

A new interdisciplinary group of faculty members interested in the study of the contemporary Middle East (including North Africa, Turkey and Iran) was established in Spring 2009 under the Buffett Center auspices. The newly established Northwestern University Middle East Forum (NUMEF) is co-chaired by Visiting Crown Chair in Middle East Studies Elie Rekhess and Buffett Center Director Hendrik Spruyt, the Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations.

The inaugural meeting of the Forum was held June 2, 2009. It was attended by 45 scholars studying the region and representing diverse disciplines including: history, political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, law, cultural studies, journalism, communications, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian languages. While its core group will be faculty, the Forum will also engage Northwestern undergraduate and graduate students.

Outgoing University President Henry S. Bienen highlighted the importance and centrality of Middle Eastern studies and expressed the University’s intensive efforts to expand the field. “Rather than creating a new center or program, the Forum is taking advantage of, and fully utilizing existing human and administrative resources in its important mission of furthering understanding of the Middle East,” said President Bienen.

At the first meeting, Professor Kristen A. Stilt, associate professor at Northwestern Law School and the Department of History, spoke to the Forum on “Enshrining Islam in National Constitutions: Genealogy, Mobility and Contestations in Egypt and Malaysia.” Professor Stilt spoke of her current research indicating that the label “Islamic state”—used both by Islamicists and the people who study them—obscures far more than it assists in understanding law and politics in the Muslim world today.

“We will strive to stimulate discussion, analysis and debate on key issues, such as the stability of regimes, political processes, elections and democratization; ideological discourse; national, ethnic and religious conflicts; minority rights; the role of constitutions; political Islam; regional security and cooperation; violence and terrorism; women’s empowerment; and culture and media,” said Rekhess. On sabbatical from his position as director, The Adenauer Program For Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel-Aviv University, he is one of Israel’s leading experts on that country’s Arab minority.

The Forum will hold workshops and seminars, produce publications, assist Middle East visiting scholars in their research, and seek to build bridges with local organizations, such as the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. At roundtable discussions, Forum members will present their current work or speak about the themes of their research on or affecting the important Middle East region.
A major international conference titled “The Middle East in the 1950s—Historical Perspectives: Israel, the Arab World and the Great Powers” will be among the Forum’s first undertakings. Planned for April 2010, the conference will be co-sponsored by the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies and the Buffett Center.