BRISMES Postgraduate Conference 2011 in Collaboration with CASAW

at the UNIVERSITY of MANCHESTER

The conference was made possible by successful applications for funding to BRISMES, CASAW, I.B. Tauris publishers, the CBRL, the Journal of Semitic Studies, and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures (SLLC) at the University of Manchester. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for their very generous support for this event.

The conference was held on the 13th and 14th of January 2011 at University Place, the University of Manchester?s main conference venue. It was opened with a welcome note by Jennifer Chandler on behalf of the organising committee. This was followed by an inspiring speech given by Prof David Denison as the postgraduate research Director of the SLLC, who expressed his full support of student-led initiatives such as these. Also, Dr Oliver Bast, the head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, provided an insightful introduction to Middle Eastern Studies here at Manchester. This was followed by a keynote speech by the current BRISMES President Alastair Newton who kindly expressed in his speech his views on the current political and economic state of affairs in the Middle East and its future prospects for the coming five years. His views were discussed in a lively questions and answers session with the conference delegates thereafter.

Further highlights included the second keynote speech by Dr Dalia Mustafa on behalf of CASAW, whose stimulating talk stressed the contribution of literary and cultural studies to research on the Middle East, as well as a presentation on ?How to get your PhD published? by Maria Marsh on behalf of I.B. Tauris, and the launch of the New Journal of Middle Eastern Studies by Eddie Wastnidge.

The conference as such included 15 panels with two, three or four 20 minute presentations each, followed by a 15 minute discussion. Contributions had been selected by the committee after the call for papers was sent out worldwide in November. They included a wide variety of topics ranging from early history to contemporary politics and from classical poetry to popular culture centered on the conference?s main theme, ?Inside-Out: Shifting Perceptions of the Middle East?. We were particularly pleased to see that the conference attracted 44 delegates not only from the whole of the UK, but also from France, Hungary, Qatar, the US and Japan.

All in all, we strongly believe that the conference met its aims to not only offer Master and PhD students in our field the chance of presenting their work to their peers, but also to serve as a unique networking opportunity which will hopefully establish long-term contacts and facilitate future research projects and international collaboration. In this sense, we would like to thank all conference delegates for having come to Manchester and presenting excellent work and engaging in highly stimulating debates in a critical but friendly atmosphere. Last but not least, as the conference organisers, we are delighted to have taken the responsibility of planning and conveying an international event such as this.
However, we could only do so much. That the conference was a great success was entirely due to the good-spirited delegates who maintained a friendly and relaxed atmosphere that not only allowed for the exchange of details on some rather fascinating top edge research, but also for establishing valuable new contacts in the field.


We have prepared a little photo gallery which can be accessed here.

If you have taken any photos while in Manchester and would like to add them to the gallery, please send them to Edgar edgar.klusener@manchester.ac.uk