The culture concept is at the core of some prominent political struggles in the Middle East. In contests over land, human rights, religious expression, material culture, development, and even economic policy, advocates shore up moral authority, co-opt or delegitimize opposition, and constitute new collectivities by drawing on the multivalent possibilities contained within the culture concept in its various historically constituted regional and global formations. As a concept that can mean both the sum of a people’s customs, traditions, ideas, etc., and the best that humans have thought and said, it contains powerful means for creating solidarities, differences, and hierarchies. Although notions of culture have long been a feature of politics in the region, most notably in nationalist movements and in the civilizing missions of colonial powers and nation-states, their proliferation and commodification over the past thirty years is notable and deserves analysis.

In thinking about a focus for the 2008 Presidential Address, I could not help but be influenced by the fact that this year marked the thirtieth anniversary of Edward Said’s seminal book on Orientalism. I chose to examine the connection between power and knowledge, central to his work, and how this has influenced not only the study of the Middle East, but how it has influenced the members and activities of the Middle East Studies Association, the largest North American professional association devoted to the study of the region, an organization whose influence sometimes extends beyond its territorial boundaries to other parts of the world.

If my assessment of Said’s contribution via Orientalism were to be proportioned solely to the immense admiration I have always had for him as a reader, whiter shades of gray and critical remarks would have to be relegated to a footnote in small print. Such an assessment would be devoted to spontaneous expressions of debt and admiration and to enumerating all the reasons Said became the pioneer he remains thirty years on, for the vast majority of us.

In the opening sequence of a 2008 documentary, Ni Sauvage, Ni Barbare (Neither Savage Nor Barbaric), co-produced by Québecois and Moroccan television, the director Roger Cantin introduces his subjects over images of art, ritual, and nature that alternate between northern Canada and northern Africa:

For two years now, a new kind of Christmas service has taken place in the Bethlehem Chapel of the Washington National Cathedral. Located steps away from the celestial stained glass windows and great organ of the cathedral’s main nave, the Bethlehem Chapel’s vaulted ceiling and rows of stone columns have an intimate feel as the room fills with people and winter coats. The chapel has a material bond with its namesake, as its limestone foundation was imported from a Bethlehem quarry a century ago. These Christmas services renewed that relationship in a markedly twenty-first century way, as congregants in D.C. came together in prayer with their counterparts from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem by way of video simulcast. And, thanks to the wonders of webcasting, anyone anywhere with a speedy internet connection could join.

The question of beginnings in relation to Edward Said’s book Orientalism can be narrated in very diverse ways, leading to a potentially productive question: when and where does the critique of Orientalism begin? Here at MESA, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary to Said’s book, it would perhaps be instructive to situate the book in relation to the various geographies, histories and fields of knowledge in which it is embedded. What are the contexts and intertexts of Said’s work? How can we characterize its undergirding conceptual paradigms and disciplinary methodologies? What about the neighboring fields that have impacted Said’s work and that in turn have been impacted by that work—are they relevant to Middle Eastern studies? Since the Saidian critique of Orientalist epistemology has by now been extrapolated to diverse cultural geographies, how can we map these transnational currents in relation to the study of the Middle East? And, finally, what does a book, written by a diasporic Palestinian in the U.S., tell us about the kinds of analytical frames that might illuminate the study of that Middle East which is not simply “over there” but also “back here?”

In July of 2006, I published an article in the journal Eighteenth Century Studies that I trust none of you ever read. Why should you? Eighteenth-Century Studies is not a venerable site for the study of the Middle East or Islam. However, it was the journal where I first considered a question in early American history that has since gained some currency in contemporary American political discourse. The question: “Could a Muslim be president?”

Since the early 1990s, the Egyptian government has devoted significant resources to new culture projects. Unprecedented numbers of new cultural institutions have been built or renovated throughout the country, including libraries, museums, culture palaces and houses, and creativity centers. These host thousands of public programs every year. The government has also started two new television channels devoted specifically to culture (thaqafa). Book fairs and art biennials have increased in number and expanded, new cultural periodicals and book series have been published, and new cultural competitions and prizes created. Nearly every day in the state press, one finds articles and announcements detailing cultural events and programs, as well as editorials on the importance thaqafa to Egyptian society.

What might the wreckage of a former prison in south Lebanon that was destroyed during Israeli bombardment in 2006 have in common with a series of “family-oriented” amusement parks built by a corporate investment group? How might these sites be related to an ecotourism facility high in the mountains above Saida and the 70-some cafés and restaurants that have opened in the southern suburbs of Beirut since 2000? Aside from being fieldsites in our ongoing research on Islam and leisure in Lebanon, these places are significant to the political party Hizbullah. They tell us something about the relationship of culture to politics in the Hizbullah community, and they can be considered part of a recently emergent “Islamic milieu” in Lebanon.

The contributions by Bishara, Deeb and Harb, Silverstein, and Winegar explore the ways non-state actors confront nationalist state projects. If these projects are not always foregrounded, the modernist nationalist state is nevertheless always in the background in each case, inviting an examination and critique of the “political commodifications of culture.” Here, I take a different approach to the culture concept in struggles between modernizing states and their subjects. Particularly suggestive in Winegar’s piece on Egypt and Deeb and Harb’s on Lebanon is the ethico-cultural dimension of thaqafa, its injunction to the would-be muthaqqaf to self-regulate, to refine the sensibilities, and so on. As the authors point out, there is an arguably Eurocentric and statist bias when thaqafa is deployed in this way. Part of this aspect of thaqafa is an implicit condescension toward “folk” (i.e., non-state) traditions, which are represented as retrogressive.

When asked to gather information for any type of research project, books are the last place many of our students want to look, unless forced to do so because print sources are required as part of the assignment. The research tool of this “post-literate” generation is the computer, and their most frequently used source of information is the internet. In fact, using the internet seems to be the best way to keep my students engaged in any extensive, or ongoing, research project.