The History and Causes of the Syrian Uprisings

Dr. Bassam Haddad will be addressing the causes behind the Syrian uprisings and the various factors that led to the twists and turns that still engulf Syria, and, of late, beyond.
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and teaches in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, and is Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011). Bassam recently published “The Political Economy of Syria: Realities and Challenges,” in Middle East Policy and is currently editing a volume on Teaching the Middle East After the Arab Uprisings, a book manuscript on pedagogical and theoretical approaches. Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of a critically acclaimed film series on Arabs and Terrorism, based on extensive field research/interviews. More recently, he directed a film on Arab/Muslim immigrants in Europe, titled The “Other” Threat. Bassam is the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute, an umbrella for four organizations dealing with knowledge production on the Middle East.

Lecture sponsored by the UCSB Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

hm 10/22/14