During this first conference in the series, Elisabeth Suzanne Kassab, a professor of philosophy at the University of Doha, will be addressing the importance and challenges of writing contemporary Arab intellectual history today. Her presentation will be organized around two main themes: on the one hand, the current state of Arab studies; and, on the other, the situation in the region and its recent dramatic upheavals. 

In the first portion, Kassab will analyze the extent to which the study of contemporary Arab thought has benefited from related fields of study, such as Arab cultural studies and the history of contemporary Arab art, with a special focus on graphic design and the visual arts. In the second part, she will be reflecting upon the impact that the upheavals in the region, from the Arab revolts to the war in Gaza, have had on Arab thought. What have these events revealed about the Arabs’ intellectual debates prior to 2011? How have they transformed the semantically relevant structures of these debates, their themes and their approaches? And, last of all, in what way is Gaza echoed within the new contemporary intellectual scene? 

Organized in Madrid with the cooperation of the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and with the appearance in representation of that program of speaker Luz Gómez, a professor of Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies at the UAM. The event will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator. 

This conference will mark the beginning of the annual conference series known as Aula Árabe Universitaria, this seventh edition of which will include the support of the new regional program for cooperation with the Arab world Masar al’an / Masar Now, run with the support of the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID) and that of the FIAP, with the common goal of contributing knowledge and dialogue on sustainable development in the Arab countries. 

This will be preceded by the official institutional opening event for the conference series, with the participation of the General Director of Casa Árabe, Miguel Moro Aguilar, the Director of Cooperation with Africa, the Arab World and Asia, Cecilia García Gasalla, and the Area Director – Justice and State of Law from the FIAP, Agustín Fernández Fernández. 

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab 

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab is a philosopher who specializes in contemporary and comparative Arab intellectual history. She currently works as an associate professor and director of the Philosophy program at the Doha Institute. 

She has authored well-known reference works such as Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective (Columbia University Press, 2010), in which she analyzes modern Arab intellectual debates in dialogue with critical traditions from other regions, a publication that won her the Sheik Zayed Book Award. Some of her most notable recent publications include Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates (Columbia University Press, 2019), which studies discussions on modernity, secularism and reform in Egypt and Syria in the period leading up to the revolutions. Her research addresses fundamental issues involving the role of Arab intellectuals, the challenges of modernity, and the tensions between tradition and change. 

She holds a bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the American University of Beirut and a PhD from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She has been a professor and researcher at internationally renowned institutions such as Yale, Columbia, Brown, Bonn and the American University of Beirut, in addition to others. She is also a member of the editorial board of Tabayyun and Qalamoun, and she is a founding member of the Brill series on Modern Intellectual Trends: The Middle East, Africa and Asia. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences.