Free Online Seminar: Academic Freedom in the MENA Region

November 4, 2020 – February 16, 2021

Wednesdays 12:00pm (EST) / 6:00pm (CET) for 14 weeks

Seminar description: Since the Arab Spring began in early 2010s, countless academics in the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA region) have been fired from their faculty positions in direct response to ideas expressed in their writing or teaching. In the most extreme cases, their lives have been threatened, and they have been forced to flee. This seminar will provide an introduction to the concept of “academic freedom,” put simply, the ability of faculty members and students to engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation.

Many countries in the MENA region have known autocratic regimes throughout their modern existence. Examining case studies from the region, participants of the seminar will reflect on how academic freedom has been conceptualized, and how it functions in post-transitional societies today. The co-leaders of the seminar will use an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate how restrictions on academic freedom have been a symptom of, as well as a result of, political upheavals. Participants will develop an understanding of how and why governments have targeted the academy, putting restrictions on academic freedom as a means to manage political dissent. 

This Seminar is organized in partnership with Off-University and the University of Bremen.

Seminar Leaders:

Mabruk Derbesh is currently a fellow at Columbia University. His PhD is in Applied Management and Decision Science with a focus on social science. He was formerly a Faculty of Economics and Political Science at the University of Tripoli, where he taught management. He is also the founder of the Libyan Institution of Academic and Intellectual Freedom.

Teoman Aktan holds a PhD in Political Science and Public Administration from Istanbul University. He has carried out research projects on organizational commitment (2010), ethnic nationalism (2011), and the intergenerational value conflicts (2012). Dr. Aktan collaborated as a social worker and interpreter with several non-governmental organizations on issues related to refugees in Turkey. He is currently a research fellow at Columbia Global Center/Amman.

Nahed Ghazzoul is an assistant professor in Linguistics. She holds a PhD in Linguistic from Lancaster University, UK. 2008. She has taught at different academic institutions including Aleppo University/Syria, Lancaster University/UK, and Jerash and Alzaytoonah University/Jordan. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University. Her specialised researches focus on linguistics, and pedagogical issues, and her field of interest is ‘Refugees Studies’. She published a couple of papers in high indexed Journals.