The presentation will focus on:
• How can conflicts be resolved in states where extremist organizations seek their own territory?
• What does the Arab Spring mean for North and West Africa and what are the prospects of developing democracy in these regions?
• What are the challenges for weak states in trying to combat terrorism and revolution from the grassroot level?
• What makes this region different for analysts to understand?

Dr. I. William Zartman is the Jacob Blaustein Professor Emeritus of International Organizations and Conflict

Teams of high school students from throughout the Pittsburgh region participate in the annual Pitt Model United Nations simulation.

College-bound minority students from Brashear High School learned about international studies and career opportunities through a panel session with Pitt study abroad returnees and breakout sessions with UCIS international studies advisors.

Asef Baat is Professor of Global and Transnational studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He previously taught at Leiden University in the Netherlands and the American University in Cairo. Among his books are: Street Politics; Poor People’s Movement in Iran; Making Islam Democratic; Social Movements and Past-Islamist Turn; and Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East.

Dr. Mohammed Bamyeh, Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh and Dr. Riham Bahi, Assistant Professor at American University in Cairo will moderate a discussion with Pitt and American University in Cairo students on US Foreign Policies and the Middle East/Northern Africa. The Middle East, Africa and the US: What are the major issues, shared views and diverse perspectives? How does the current crisis in Syria and Egypt impact US citizens? How is US foreign policy viewed in terms of African development and revolutions in the Arab world? Is Palestine a forgotten issue?

Juan R.I. Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and the Iraq War. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and continues to travel widely there.

Closing Discussion, Paul A. Bove, Chair

Third Panel Discussion: Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, “Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists”, Jonathan Arac, Mellon Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh “What Can We Learn from Uniqueness?” and Donald E. Pease, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, Chair of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, Dartmouth College “Said’s Melville”

Second Panel Discussion: QS Tong, Professor of English, University of Hong Kong “The Question of Tibet and Orientalism”, and RA Judy, Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh “‘Gods always fail’: Said as an Index of Secular Humanism, the Arab Revolution, and Frantz Fanon”, Daniel T. O’Hara, First Term Mellon Professor of English, Temple University “On Late Style? The Question of a New Beginning”

First Panel Discussion: Wlad Godzich, Distinguished Professor of Literature, UCSC, and Visiting Fellow, the Humanities Center, University of Pittsburgh “The Stateless and the Proper” Stathis Gourgouris, Professor, Institute of Comparative Literature & Society, Classics, Columbia University “The Epistemology of Edward Said”