The King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas and the Program for Middle East Studies at the University of Alabama present "Lebanon on the Brink?" a virtual guest lecture by Ziad Abu-Rish.

The lecture will take place virtually at 6 p.m. CDT Thursday, April 22, via Zoom. This event is free and open to the public.

Register for the lecture

This talk examines the multiple crises manifesting in Lebanon today and their impact on both everyday lived experience and the political system in place. In doing so, the presentation engages the complexities of the currency, fiscal, infrastructural, and public health crises and their relationships to political incumbents and popular mobilizations.  

This lecture is the second of a series of planned collaborations between the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies and the Program for Middle East Studies.

Ziad Abu-Rish's research interests center on the intersections between state formation, economic development, and popular mobilizations in Lebanon and the broader Middle East and North Africa. He is Director of the M.A. Program in Human Rights and the Arts, and Visiting Associate Professor of Human Rights, at Bard College.

Abu-Rish is the author of several articles and book chapters, including  "Lebanon beyond Exceptionalism" in A Critical Political Economy of the  Middle East and North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2020); "Municipal Politics in Lebanon" and "Garbage Politics," both in Middle East Report. He is also co-editor of The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of An Old Order? (Pluto Press, 2012). Abu-Rish currently serves as Co-Editor of Arab Studies Journal and Jadaliyya, as well as Co-Director of the Lebanon Dissertation Summer Institute. He is currently a research fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

This lecture is presented by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, and the Program for Middle East Studies at the University of Alabama.

Learn more about the event on its Facebook page.

About the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies: The King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies is an academic and research unit in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East and the geo-cultural area in which Islamic civilization prospered and continues to shape world history. More information about the King Fahd Center can be found at mest.uark.edu. For ongoing news, follow the Center on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Program for Middle East Studies at the University of Alabama: The Program for Middle East Studies was founded in 2019 within the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Alabama to promote research and teaching about the modern Middle East and North Africa and the region's role in global affairs. For more information, contact Waleed Hazbun at waleed.hazbun@ua.edu and for program news, see https://whazbun.people.ua.edu/news.