"When, in a society, the sovereignty belongs to God alone, expressed in its obedience to the Divine Law, only then is every person in that society free from servitude to others, and only then does he taste true freedom.”
― Sayyid Qutb, leading intellectual in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, executed in 1966.
The 2007 Nicholas R. Clifford Symposium, titled “Islam and Politics in a Globalizing World,” will take place at Middlebury College on Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 4-6. The symposium will feature prominent scholars of Islam and politics and events include a lecture, panel discussions, a dance performance and a film. Speakers will address issues of faith, conflict, human rights, democracy and discuss the implications for the future of political Islam in an increasingly interconnected world. All events are free and open to the public.
The Nicholas R. Clifford Symposium was established by the Middlebury College board of trustees in 1993 to honor the distinguished career of Nicholas R. Clifford, Middlebury College professor emeritus of history. He was a member of the Middlebury College history department from 1966 through 1993, and served as vice president for academic affairs on three occasions, from 1979-1985, in 1989 and from 1991-1993. Clifford is a former trustee, and was a co-chair of the college’s Bicentennial celebration committee.
For more information, contact Assistant Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs Charlotte Tate at tate@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-5975.
Participant biographies
2007 Clifford Symposium Program
"Islam and Politics in a Globalizing World"
Oct. 4-6
Thursday, Oct. 4
4:30 p.m. Panel Discussion
Robert A. Jones ’59 House, located on Hillcrest Road off College Street (Route 125)
“What it means to be a Muslim”
Chair: Middlebury College Instructor in Religion Justin Stearns
Panelists: Middlebury College Islamic Society members
Mahmoud Hayat, Islamic Society of Vermont
Discussant: Anas Malik, Xavier University Assistant Professor of Political Science and Sociology
8 p.m. Keynote Lecture
Robert A. Jones '59 House, located on Hillcrest Road off College Street (Route 125)
“Iraq and the Future of Political Islam”
James Piscatori, Oxford University Professor of Islamic Studies
Friday, Oct. 5
4 p.m. Panel Discussion
Robert A. Jones ’59 House, located on Hillcrest Road off College Street (Route 125)
“Why does Islam become politicized?”
Chair: Middlebury College Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs and Professor of Political Science Allison Stanger
Panelists: Anas Malik, Xavier University Assistant Professor of Political Science and Sociology
Andrew March, Yale University Assistant Professor of Political Science
David Patel, Cornell University assistant professor of Middle Eastern politics
James Piscatori, Oxford University Professor of Islamic studies
Saturday, Oct. 6
10:30 a.m. Panel Discussion
Robert A. Jones ’59 House, located on Hillcrest Road off College Street (Route 125)
“Islam, Human Rights, and Democracy”
Chair: Middlebury College Assistant Professor of Political Science Quinn Mecham
Panelists: Amr Hamzawy, Senior Associate of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Mirjam Künkler, Princeton University Instructor in Near Eastern Studies
Naz Modirzadeh, Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard School of Public Health
1:30 p.m. Dance Performance
Dance Theater in the Center for the Arts, located on South Main Street (Route 30)
Middlebury College Artist-in-Residence Leyya Tawil, of Syrian-Palestinian descent, will perform her solo “Landmine/Map of the World,” followed by an improvised work with violinist and Palestinian-American Mike Khoury. In a follow-up discussion, Tawil will address the role of contemporary dance in creating and breaking illusions about Middle Eastern women and culture and Khoury will discuss the Arab avant-garde in music.
3 p.m. & p.m. Film Screening
Dana Auditorium in Sunderland Language Center, located on Main Street (Route 125)
“Osama”
The first Afghan film shot since the fall of the Taliban, “Osama” won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 2003. Director Siddiq Barmak portrays a young girl and her mother after they lose their hospital jobs under the Taliban. With no men to support them and harsh rules restricting women, the girl disguises herself as a boy named Osama in order to earn a living. Quinn Mecham will provide an introduction to the 3 p.m. screening. Co-sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series.
Sponsored by the Clifford Symposium; Rohatyn Center for International Affairs; Hirschfield International Film Series; Women's and Gender Studies Program; Departments of Music, Political Science, and Religion; Dance Program; Middle East Studies Program; Brainerd Commons.
The lecture, panel discussions, dance performance and film screening are all free and open to the public. For more information, contact Charlotte Tate, assistant director of the Middlebury College Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, at tate@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-5795.
Middlebury College Clifford Symposium
Islam and Politics in a Globalizing World
Participant Biographies
Amr Hamzawy is a noted Egyptian political scientist and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously taught at Cairo University and the Free University of Berlin. Hamzawy has a deep knowledge of Middle East politics and specific expertise on the reform process in the region. His research interests include the changing dynamics of political participation in the Arab world, the role of Islamist opposition groups in Arab politics, with special attention both to Egypt and the Gulf countries. Hamzawy’s studies at Cairo University focused on civil society and democratization in the Arab world, Islamism, and the cultural impacts of globalization in Muslim majority societies. He received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin, where he worked as an assistant professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Mahmoud Hayyat is the former president of the Islamic Society of Vermont, serving in that capacity for 7 years. He is currently the chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of Vermont. Mr. Hayyat is an optician by profession.
Political Scientist Mirjam Künkler joined the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 2007. Her research focuses on processes of regime transformation in Iran and Indonesia, more specifically, on how social movements and regime-opposition relations bear on the erosion or stabilization of political power. Her dissertation dealt with the impact of contemporary political thought and social movement activism on the transformation of authoritarian rule in Iran (1989-2005) and Indonesia (1981-1998). Of broader comparative interest to her are questions about (1) religious institutions in democratization processes—a subject on which she has a forthcoming edited volume together with Julia Leininger, and (2) political parties in the Muslim world—a research project for which she received a three-year grant together with her colleague Gunes Murat Tezcur. From July 2006 to August 2007 Mirjam Künkler served as the Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University, and was a fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).
Anas Malik, assistant professor of political science at Xavier University in Cincinnati, does research on political Islam and development. He grew up in Pakistan and Libya, received his high school education at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, his B.A. from Marlboro College in Vermont, and completed his Master’s in Economics and Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University in Bloomington. He speaks Urdu and Arabic, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Jordan and Pakistan. In the past three years, he has participated in Muslim-Catholic dialogue organized by the Islamic Society of North America and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Andrew F. March is assistant professor of political science at Yale University. He received his D.Phil in politics from Oxford University and previously taught at James Madison College, Michigan State University. His most recent publications are “Islamic Foundations for a Social Contract in non-Muslim Liberal Democracies” (American Political Science Review, May 2007) and “Liberal Citizenship and the Search for an Overlapping Consensus: The Case of Muslim Minorities” (Philosophy & Public Affairs, fall 2006). He has a book forthcoming (2008) from Oxford University Press on Islamic law and citizenship in non-Muslim liberal democracies.
Naz Modirzadeh is Senior Associate at the Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, where she oversees the program’s work on international humanitarian law and the Middle East. She previously worked for Human Rights Watch, and later served as assistant professor and director of the International Human Rights Law M.A. Program at the American University in Cairo. She has carried out field research and professional trainings in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Europe. She has published and lectured on human rights and torture, the application of international humanitarian law in Iraq and Palestine, Islamic law and human rights, and legal reform and Islamic law in Afghanistan. Her primary research is on the intersections between Islamic law, international humanitarian law, human rights law, and the practitioners who work within and between these disciplines. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Her most recent publication is “Taking Islamic Law Seriously: INGOs and the Battle for Muslim Hearts and Minds,” in the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
David Siddhartha Patel is an assistant professor of government at Cornell University. His research focuses on Islamic institutions and collective action in the Middle East. In 2003-2004, he conducted independent research in Iraq on the role of mosques and clerical networks in creating social order post-invasion. He has also conducted research in Jordan, Syria, and Yemen on state oversight of Islamic institutions, information dissemination through mosques, and Islamist movements. Before joining the Cornell faculty, Patel was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, both at Stanford University. He received his B.A. from Duke University in economics and political science and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in political science.
James Piscatori is Fellow of Wadham College and of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and member of the Faculties of Social Studies and Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. He was formerly professor in the Department of International Politics, the University of Wales; associate professor at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University; and research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. He is the author, among other publications, of Islam in a World of Nation-States, co-author of Muslim Politics, and editor of Islam in the Political Process and Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf. He is an editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, and in 2004 he delivered the Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture of the British Academy on “Imagining Pan-Islam: Religious Activism and Political Utopias.”