اقتراح لمؤتمر في تايوان، وقد حضرته

 

 

 

 

International Conference on

Developing Area Studies in Arab and Muslim Countries

 

A Proposal

By

Mazin S. Motabagani

Al-Madinah Center for European and American Studies

(under registration)

Objectives:

Arab countries have trailed behind in the field of establishing area studies except for few instances of some departments here and there for American studies or Asian studies. However, the concept of area studies that has started in the west with Orientalism then area or regional studies is still alien to our universities. The British  government has been known to support these studies as early as early as 1903 with first British government committee or commission to conduct a survey of the need for specialist in the field of East European, Slavonic Oriental and African studies. There were more commissions since then in 1947,1985 and 1993 and 2007. The USA government started with the defense decree of 1957 to support a number of Middle Eastern studies at 24 major universities in the USA.  The same can be said of other European countries such as France, Italy, Germany and many Others.

If we turn to the east we find that Japan stands permanent in this field by starting in 1949 with the American Studies lecture series at Doshisha University. China may have started late but the pace of such studies gaind momentum in the late 1990s.    

In this conference we intend to explore the experiences of other nations who have long experience in this endeavor in terms of the incentives, objectives and curricula of such studies. We also need to explore the relationships between the establishment of  these studies with the respective governments and private sectors.

Therefore participants in this conference should be from all over the globe to bring around the experiences in their respective countries.

Suggested themes:

1-  History of Area studies around the World

2-  Critical analysis of experiences around the world

3-  Relationships between departments, colleges, centers and institution and their respective governments..

4-  Prospects for area studies in the Arab World.

 

Keynote speakers

Professor Leonard Binder(USA)

Professor Zakaria Luckman(USA

Professor Muhammad  Khalifa Ahmad(Egypt)

Professor Ali Al-Namlah. (Saudi Arabia)

Invitees

Ministers of Higher Education in as many Arab countries as We can.