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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
This Presentation is a rather impressionistic as well as eclectic view of Middle Eastern Studies, one which does not pretend to be complete. Many of you have been associated with Middle Eastern Studies for much longer than I have, and you could undoubtedly see greater changes—or lack of changes—than I will present.
Let me begin by briefly looking at the history and growth of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, for the growth of MESA is somewhat a reflection of the structure and changes in Middle East studies, particularly, of course, in the United States. Also, in this way I can make comparisons with MESA when looking at developments elsewhere.
This paper is a revision of “The State of Middle Eastern Studies,” presented at the Plenary Session of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, International Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on 7 July 1986, and “The Middle East Studies Association of North America: A History and Assessment,” presented at the International Conference on the State of the Art of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Calgary, on 1 August 1986. Dr. Bonine has been Executive Secretary of MESA since 1981.
1 It should be mentioned that many professional academic organizations had a similar decline in the late 1970s as the job market, economy, and student population declined. The student membership also had declined because many students finished their Ph.D.’s and became full members.
2 This total of 1,569 does include some members who have not yet renewed for 1986, and there is an annual attrition—which has been more than offset by greater numbers of new members the last several years.
3 Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles (KPI Ltd.; Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1986).
4 In fact, an earlier group, the Alternative Middle East Studies Seminar (AMESS) was established in 1977 at a MESA annual meeting, with a “revisionist” orientation and concerned in part with women’s issues. AMESS held its first conference in 1979 in New York City on “Women and the Middle East,” held at the same time as the MESA meeting in Salt Lake City in order to protest the fact that Utah had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Their concerns and perspectives are now, perhaps, beginning to be found more and more within groups in MESA.
5 See Binder, Leonard, “Area Studies: A Critical Reassessment,” in The Studies of the Middle East: Research and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences, ed. Binder, Leonard (John Wiley & Sons, New York 1975) 1–28.Google Scholar
6 E.g., Birks, J. S. and Sinclair, C. A., Arab Manpower: The Crises of Development (Croom Helm, London 1980).Google Scholar
7 MESA’s plenary session at the meeting in Boston (November 1986), “The Middle East in World History,” features the world-renowned historian William H. McNeill, and is an attempt to look at wider implications and importance.
8 For more detailed information on these groups, see “Scholarly Organizations Concerned with Middle East Topics,” MESA Bulletin 20.1 (July 1986) 50–58.
9 For further information on AIPAC and other organizations and activities of the Israeli lobby in the U.S., see Findley, Paul, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (Lawrence Hill & Co., Westport, Conn. 1985).Google Scholar