Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Protest movements continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics and posing knotty challenges to U.S. policymakers to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

Panelists

P.J. Crowley – Omar N. Bradley Joint Chair in Strategic Leadership
Ed Webb -Professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College
Sherifa Zuhur – Director of the Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Strategic Studies
David Commins (moderator) – Professor of history and Middle East studies, Dickinson College

Biographies
David Commins is a professor of history and the Benjamin Rush Distinguished Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College. He teaches courses in the Middle East studies program and the history department. His publications include Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (Oxford University Press, 1990), Historical Dictionary of Syria (Scarecrow Press, 1995, revised edition 2004), and The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (IB Tauris, 2006).

P.J Crowley, former United States assistant Secretary of State for public affairs, is the 2011-2012 recipient of the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership. While in residence, Crowley conducts Read more

E.U. Special Representative (EUSR) for the Southern Mediterranean

Arab Spring: A European Perspective

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room – 12:30 p.m.

Protest movements and uprisings continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics. The trend poses knotty challenges to European Union policy makers as they try to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Bernardino Leon is the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for the Southern Mediterranean.

He was born in Malaga, where he obtained a degree in Law focusing his studies in public international law. He got a diploma in international studies from the CEI, University of Barcelona. He became a Spanish diplomat in 1989. He was first posted to Liberia in 1990-1991, where the devastating civil war focused his professional interest in understanding the underpinning causes of ethnic violence.

Since then, his political and diplomatic career has been mainly devoted to the Arab world. In 1991, he was part of a short mission to Libya in the context of establishing the Read more

** BREAKING ISSUE **

Thursday, April 7, 2011
Denny Hall, Room 317 – 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Larry Goodson – professor of Middle East studies, U.S. Army War College
W. Andrew Terrill – professor of national security affairs, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
David Commins – professor of history and Middle East Studies, Dickinson College

Protest movements continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics and posing knotty challenges to US policymakers to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)
Larry P. Goodson is professor of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Army War College. He is regularly consulted by senior government officials about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. In 2008-2009 he served on a four-month temporary assignment with the U.S. Central Command Assessment Team, where he focused on U.S. strategy and policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan for General David Petraeus. As U.S. Central Command Fellow in 2004, he served as a senior adviser to General John Abizaid on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Prof. Goodson held the General Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security at the U.S. Army War College from 2004 Read more