Casa Árabe took part in WOCMES 2018 

This edition of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES), which took place in Seville from July 16 to 20, 2018, organized by the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation with the support of Casa Árabe, had greater attendance than its predecessors, Mainz 2002, Amman 2006, Barcelona 2010 and Ankara 2014.

This congress is considered to be the most important forum for researchers, scholars, journalists, diplomats and other experts in the field of the Near East and North Africa. With the slogan “Your Roots, Your Heritage: Knowledge that unites,” the academic sessions were held at the University of Seville. A total of 517 academic sessions were held in all, in different forms (panels, round table discussions, conferences, etc.), on 25 different topics: Al-Andalus; the ancient Near East; Christian Studies; conflict analysis and resolution; the contemporary Near East; Cultural Studies; Economics; Gender Studies; International Relations and International Law; Islamic Studies; Jewish Studies; Linguistics and Literature; Media Studies; Medieval Studies; Mediterranean Studies; nationality/identities and ethnic origin; Migration Studies; regulatory phenomena and Law; North Africa; Politics; Sefarad and the Sephardic diaspora; Scientific Culture; Translation Studies; Urban and Regional Studies; water, agriculture and environment.

Casa Árabe, in addition to being one of the entities that sponsored WOCMES 2018, took part in the opening event for the congress, with attendance by its General Director, Pedro Martínez-Avial. At the same time, its Coordinator of International Politics, Karim Hauser, organized the round table discussion on the de-radicalization of extremist narratives in cyberspace on July 17. The meeting also included analyses by Aziz Douai, from the University of Ontario, Mohamed Fahmi of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Joseph Alagha of the University of Haigazian. Despite not having been able to attend personally, Abeer al Najjar, of the American University in Sharjah, and Evrim Tandogan, of the Middle East Technical University, sent in presentations to enrich the lively debate. On July 18, Casa Árabe took part in the Forum of Think-Tanks organized by the Real Instituto Elcano (Spain), the Institute for International Political Studies (Italy), and the Think-Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the Lauder Institute, at the University of Pennsylvania (United States). Casa Árabe’s Culture Coordinator, Nuria Medina, attended the round table on modernity in Iraq, with expert Nada Shabout of the University of North Texas, whereas Casa Árabe’s Assistant Director and Programming Coordinator, Elena González, attended the ceremony for awarding of the Wocmes Prize by Rashid Khalidi, and the panel on regional challenges in the MENA region on July 19, with experts from the CIDOB, IEMed, the University of Bologna, the Istituto di Affari Internazionali (IAI), and others.

We recommend reading the speech given by Rashid Khalidi at the ceremony in which he receive the WOCMES award. It is available, in the original language version (English) with a translation into Spanish.