Abstract Submission: Interested participants should submit an abstract of no more than 350 words by 28 February 2025.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13530194.2024.2373066?src=exp-la

‘Legacies of Islamic Ecumenicism:
Taqrib, Shi’a-Sunni Relations, and Globalized Politics in the Middle East’
Weatherhead Center, 2021
M. Sagha, ed.
https://shiism.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/legacies-islamic-ecumenicismtaqrib-shia-sunni-relations-and?

The Coronavirus Is Exacerbating Sectarian Tensions in the Middle East

The novel coronavirus is advancing across the Middle East, straining frail public health services and exacerbating preexisting political and sectarian tensions, both within states and between regional rivals.

The Middle East’s Great Divide Is Not Sectarianism

The spectre of sectarianism haunts the Middle East. It is blamed for chaos, conflict, and extremism. It defines what is seen as the region’s principal fault line: Sunni versus Shiite. It has the power and elegance of a grand theory that seemingly explains all.

O Scharbrodt, ‘A minority within a minority?: the complexity and multilocality of transnational Twelver Shia networks in Britain’, Contemporary Islam (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-018-0431-0

Bahraini Narratives About the United States

The eruption of Bahrain’s political crisis seven-and-a-half years ago marked a watershed in Manama-Washington relations. It also transformed how both Bahrain’s regime and its Shia-dominated opposition viewed the United States. For decades, Bahrain’s leadership has seen the United States as the archipelago kingdom’s offshore security guarantor and a bastion against political ambitions from regional powers.

The FRONTLINE Interview: Vali Nasr

In this interview for the FRONTLINE documentary “Bitter Rivals: Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Middle East scholar Vali Nasr talks about the history driving today’s wars in the Middle East, whether these conflicts can be solved, and the parallels between ISIS and the nightwalkers from “Game of Thrones.”

The February 2018 PBS documentary ‘Bitter Rivals: Iran and Saudi Arabia’, for which this interview was conducted, can be accessed here.