Publications

James Onley and Gerd Nonneman at Qatar National Library (photo taken prior to the pandemic)

Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar

GU-Q faculty and staff have made important contributions to research—on current events and major global issues—from published volumes and refereed journal articles to engaging podcasts.

Contributions include 11 books, 27 journal articles, two journal special issues, 11 book chapters, and 42 blogs, podcasts, and expert insights for this year. The collection of work covers topics such as the Darfur crisis and Western bias in literature, filling gaps in knowledge about Arabic education, migration and citizenship, Islamic governance of pandemics, and the development of the field of Arab Gulf Studies.

SEE FULL LIST OF PUBLICATIONS IN APPENDIX II

Publications

Contributions to the Development of the Field of Gulf Studies

The first-ever comprehensive survey of the global development of Gulf and Arabian Studies titled “The Journal of Arabian Studies and the Development of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies”—co-authored by Gerd Nonneman and James Onley, Director of Historical Research and Partnerships at Qatar National Library—was published in the Journal of Arabian Studies.

I am particularly pleased at the increasing number of authors from Qatar and the Gulf itself whose research we have been able to publish.

—Gerd Nonneman

The article finds that Qatar-based research and institutional support have played a prominent role in the global development of the field of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula studies in recent years, and the field has experienced a meteoric rise, especially in the last decade.

READ THE PRESS STORY Historical Roots of Islamic Responses to COVID-19

Ayman Shabana’s article, “From the Plague to the Coronavirus: Islamic Ethics and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic” was published in the Journal of Islamic Ethics.

In the article Shabana argues that Islamic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are based on scriptural text interpretation as well as practical lessons gained from actual occurrences of epidemics and pandemics, an analysis which offers contemporary religious guidance on prevention and treatment of the novel coronavirus, and modifications of funerary rites and rituals.

Studying the history of Islamic ethical discussions on pandemics provides a very important perspective into how Muslims have interacted with previous incidents and also how much this tradition adapts to new developments in Muslim societies.

Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar

Newly Authored Books

Rogaia Abusharaf explains the competing narratives which have informed international responses to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur in her book, Darfur Allegory (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Abusharaf critiques the pseudoscientific notions of race and ethnicity that posit divisions between “Arab” northerners and “African” Darfuris, highlighting the power of words to heal or perpetuate civil conflict.

Mahmoud Al-Ashiri

and his co-authors offer a linguist’s insight into the most commonly used words on television in Modern Standard Arabic for children aged four to nine in their book, A Frequency Lexicon of Standard Arabic used in Children’s TV Programs: A Corpus-based Lexicon (Dar Kunuz al-Ma’rifah al’ilmiyah, 2021). Ian Almond decenters Eurocentric discourses of global literature and history by actively providing an alternative in his book, World Literature Decentered: Beyond the “West” through Turkey, Mexico and Bengal (Routledge, 2021). The book argues that the West represents a global minority, a fact which should change the way scholars and readers analyze world literature.

The word for allegory in Arabic is ibra, which literally means ‘the lesson learned.’ The ibra of Darfur lies in its ‘lessons’ about the impact of multiple and intersecting levels of violence stemming from colonial rule, environmental degradation, and crimes against humanity.

CIRS Publications

BOOKS EDITED BY CIRS STAFF

Zahra Babar, CIRS Associate Director of Research, and Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Assistant Director for Publications, edited and co-edited the following books this year:

Mobility and Forced Displacement in the Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2020) edited by Zahra Babar.

Informal Politics in the Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2021) edited by Suzi Mirgani.

2021 Routledge Handbook of Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2021) edited by Roel Meijer, James Sater, and Zahra Babar.

CIRS-SPONSORED PUBLICATIONS

Water and Conflict in the Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2020) edited by Marcus Dubois King.

Journal Special issues

“The Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East” for The Muslim World (Issue 111, 2021) edited by Adel Abdel Ghafar.

“The GCC Crisis: Qatar and Its Neighbors” for the Journal of Arabian Studies (Issue 10, no. 2, 2020) edited by David Roberts.

Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar

Community Matters

Drawing on faculty expertise, GU-Q provides relevant programming and advanced educational opportunities aligned with national priorities and community needs. And in these unprecedented times, public outreach efforts were further driven by the understanding that a connected community is a resilient community.

From research events and public discussions on FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 to the ongoing pandemic and women’s economic contribution in Qatar—the university provided a platform for the consideration of national concerns.

A perfect example that illustrates the importance of having disaster management skills at this time is COVID. The world is already facing multiple hazards and disasters, even before COVID, and we have to be prepared for the next one.

— Ali Mohammed Al-Hammadi, Captain, Qatar Ministry of Interior (IEDM’21)