Time: 6:30pmVenue: Fogg Lecture Theatre, Mile End Campus
Professor Fawaz Gerges (Director of the London School of Economics’ Middle East Centre) introduces the launch of a new book by Dr Christopher Phillips (Queen Mary, University of London), Everyday Arab Identity: the Daily Reproduction of the Arab World (London: Routledge, 2012).Dr Phillips will discuss his research, which examines the place of Arab identity in today’s Middle East. Whether through government propaganda or popular transnational satellite television channels, he argues that Arab citizens encounter a discourse that reinforces a sense of belonging to their own state and a broader Arab world on a daily basis. Looking through the lens of nationalism theory, his book examines how and why Arab identity continues to be reproduced in today’s Middle East, and how that Arab identity interacts with strengthening ties to religion and the stateDrawing on case studies of two ideologically different Arab regimes, Syria and Jordan, Dr Phillips explores both the implications this everyday Arab identity will have on western policy towards the Middle East and its real life impact on international relations, particularly in the wake of the 2011-12 Arab Awakening.
A limited number of copies of the book will be available at the launch, at a discounted rate of £25 and the launch will be followed by a drinks reception.