UC Davis experts: The Middle East
The following UC Davis faculty members are available for comment on various topics related to the Middle East. If you need more help in finding a source for a related topic, please contact Karen Nikos, (530) 752-6101, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu.
Politics, citizenship and security
- Syria, revolution and refugees
- Citizenship for women and children
- Religious conflict and politics
- Middle East security issues
Law
Economics
Religion, history and the classics
CITIZENSHIP, POLITICS AND SECURITY
Syria, revolution, refugees
Keith David Watenpaugh is a historian and associate professor of modern Islam, human rights and peace at UC Davis. An expert on refugees and humanitarian crises in the Middle East, Watenpaugh is the author of "Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism and the Arab Middle Class." He has lived in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey and worked in Iraq. Earlier this year, Watenpaugh predicted the unfolding humanitarian crises at the Syrian-Turkish border. He serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and is at work on a study on the history of human rights and humanitarianism in the Middle East. Listen to an audio file of his interview analyzing the Syrian conflict given June 29, 2011, at the UC Davis Gifford Center for Population Studies . Contact: Keith David Watenpaugh, Religious Studies, (530) 574-0815, kwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu.
Citizenship for women and children
UC Davis anthropologist Suad Joseph is an expert in gender, family, politics, and culture and identity in the Middle East. Joseph is following a cohort of children in a Lebanese village, observing over time how they learn their notions of rights, responsibilities, nationality and citizenship; how these ideas come to be thought of as male or female; and how the notions are transferred from the family into political and public arenas. She is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures and founded and coordinates the Arab Families Working Group, a consortium of scholars, planners and policy-makers who carry out research on Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. She is also founder and first president of the Association of Middle East Women's Studies, the main U.S.-based organization for scholars who conduct research about women in the Middle East. Contact: Suad Joseph, Anthropology, (530) 752-1593, sjoseph@ucdavis.edu.
Religious conflict and politics
David Biale, the Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish History and director of Jewish Studies at UC Davis, can speak about intersections among Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. politics and religion. Biale can also analyze religious tensions among Jews in Israel over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. He is the author of Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History and Eros and the Jews. Biale is a regular columnist on issues pertaining to Israel and the Middle East for the San Francisco Chronicle. Contact: David Biale, History, (530) 752-1640 (office), (510) 524-9607, dbiale@ucdavis.edu.
Middle East security issues
Zeev Maoz, political science professor at UC Davis, is an expert on Middle East security, including politics, economics and strategic military issues. He can talk about domestic instability in both the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as about more general Middle East political problems. The former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Maoz is the author of Network of Nations and Defending the Holy Land. Contact: Zeev Maoz, Political Science, (530) 752-1989, zmaoz@ucdavis.edu.
LAW
Women's human rights
Professor Madhavi Sunder of the UC Davis School of Law is an expert on women's human rights in Muslim countries and communities. With law and culture as the focus of her scholarship, Sunder says international human rights law often fails to address women's rights under even the most oppressive regimes, such as the Taliban, because such law is reticent to interfere with religion and culture. Her work focuses on the impact on women's rights of new religious constitutional democracies in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Contact: Madhavi Sunder, School of Law, (530) 752-2896, msunder@ucdavis.edu.
Civil rights, racial profiling
Kevin Johnson, a professor and dean of the UC Davis School of Law, has written extensively about how security measures adopted in the war on terrorism have adversely affected the civil rights of Arab and Muslim noncitizens and impacted immigration enforcement generally. Contact: Kevin Johnson, School of Law, (530) 752-0243, krjohnson@ucdavis.edu.
ECONOMICS
Democracy and economics
Hossein Farzin, a UC Davis professor of agricultural and resource economics, specializes in the Middle East. A former economist and consultant for the World Bank, Farzin has advised Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates on their economies. "In my view, institutionalized democracy for the Middle East is the most valuable social, economic and political capital asset. It offers a sustainable yield to be shared by both the people in those countries and the rest of the world, including particularly the United States." He can talk about the stakes that the world, and particularly the United States, has in supporting and helping the people of the Middle East nations to establish democratic institutions. Contact: Hossein Farzin, Agricultural and Resource Economics, (530) 752-7610, farzin@primal.ucdavis.edu.
Political economy of the Middle East
Elias Tuma, UC Davis professor emeritus of economics, can talk about challenges in the Middle East. A specialist in social sciences and Middle East economics, Tuma has written about food and population; economics and political change; the economics of Middle East peace; and poverty, unemployment and inequity in the Arab world. Tuma has served as consultant for the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Currently he is leading a seminar on political economy of the Middle East. Contact: Elias Tuma, Economics, (530) 889-1991 home, tuma@vfr.net.
RELIGION, HISTORY AND THE CLASSICS
History and Islam
Baki Tezcan, UC Davis associate professor of history and religious studies, teaches about Islam and the pre-modern history of the Middle East. His research focuses on the central Islamic world (now the modern Middle East) in the 16th and 17th centuries. He is also interested in modern Islamic movements in Turkey, where a political party with Islamic roots came to power recently. Contact: Baki Tezcan, History, (530) 752-9981, btezcan@ucdavis.edu.
Arabic and Persion poetry and culture
Jocelyn Sharlet, an assistant professor of comparative literature, studies classical Arabic and Persian poetry and poetics, Islamic culture, and modern approaches to the classical heritage in the Arab world and Iran. She can also discuss modern West Asian/North African literature. Sharlet has co-translated a Persian novella, "Women Without Men" by Shahrnush Parsipur. Contact: Jocelyn Sharlet, Comparative Literature, (530) 752-1971, jcsharlet@ucdavis.edu.
The classics
Lynn Roller, professor of classics and art history, can speak about historic monuments and urban centers in what was once Mesopotamia and is now in Iraq and southeastern Turkey. Roller can also talk about the art and archaeological monuments of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome. An archaeologist with many years of research experience in Turkey, Roller won the Wiseman Prize, given by the Archaeological Institute of America, for the outstanding book of the year in classical archaeology for her book In "Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele" (1999). Contact: Lynn Roller, Classics, (530) 752-1062, leroller@ucdavis.edu.
Media contacts:
- Karen Nikos, (530) 752-6101, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu.
Last updated Sept. 6, 2011
