Minutes, August 2007

Middle East Sociology Working Group
Minutes

Convened at the American Sociological Association, Annual Meeting, New York, August 12, 2007.

We met on Sunday morning, August 12, from 8:30 to 10:00 at the New York Hilton. About 10 people attended. Attendees focused on developing more integration among sociologists studying the Middle East.

The group discussed having a website with links to other websites, such as MESA, ISA, and other organizations. Tugrul Keskin of Virginia Tech noted that his Sociology of Islam listserve also can serve as an integrative tool, and those interested in being on it should subscribe at keskin@vt.edu. Said Arjomand of Stony Brook University encouraged sociologists to participate in the upcoming meetings of the International Sociological Association, which is holding a forum on Sociological Research and Public Debate in Barcelona, Spain, September 5-8, 2008. Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, volunteered to house the website at his university and will proceed with setting it up.

Elif Andac of Kansas University noted that it is difficult to find syllabi that others are using to teach the Sociology of the Middle East. The group articulated how helpful it would be to see “what” others are covering in such a course as well as what resources they are using. We talked about pulling together syllabi for the ASA volumes of syllabi. Katherine Meyer volunteered to shepherd such a project through the ASA publication process.

The group discussed the absence of information about what dissertations are being published by colleagues at universities in the Middle East. There seems to be no easy way to find out what they are and developing such a way would be helpful. If anyone has suggestions or wants to assume this responsibility, that would be great.

The group discussed the need for information for graduate students at different universities to know what others are doing elsewhere and to know faculty elsewhere (especially within the U.S. itself) who may be helpful to their projects. Graduate students noted that they are often the only one, or one of very few, at their institution working on the Middle East and could benefit from getting together with others.

We discussed getting together next year at the ASA meetings. Some suggested getting together at MESA. Said suggested getting together at lunch during the ASA. We discussed forming a section but there was not much enthusiasm for that as it requires a lot of work. There was no final conclusion to the discussions of when and where to get together.

We discussed being on the program at the ASA. Charles Kurzman already has proposed a panel for the ASA Annual Meeting in 2008. (Such are due two years before the meeting.) There has been no response from Katherine Meyer’s letter in January on behalf of a number of sociologists studying the Middle East to the ASA and its Council regarding annual incorporation of the Sociology of the Middle East into ASA Programs. In light of that, we discussed having scholars, particularly senior ones, volunteering one or two at a time to assume responsibility for trying to get a session at ASA. Now would be the time for applying for a session for 2009; so one or two people would need to apply now for 2009. We could work out who would be the one(s) to worry about 2010, 2011, etc.

Katherine Meyer, Ohio State University