Turbulent World – Easter Term 2015

Easter term 2015 series
Dates: 23 April and 29 April 2015
Time: 5.15 – 6.45pm
Place: Thomas Gray Room, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge 

Thursday, 23 April

Boots or Soft Shoes? How Can the European Union Best Help Bring Security, Stability and Growth in North Africa?
Charles Clarke, Former Home Secretary and Visiting Professor in Politics at the University of East Anglia

The talk will discuss the economic, political and security steps which the European Union should be considering in order to strengthen its relationship with its southern border – North Africa. The enormous changes in that region over the last 5 years have not yet drawn an appropriate response from the European Union, and a more coherent approach is required if stability is to be achieved.

Wednesday, 29 April

Arabic Studies and Security in Israel: From ‘Latin of the Middle East’ to the Middle East in Latin

Dr Yonatan Mendel, Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies in Cambridge, and Researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In his talk, Yonatan Mendel will present his recently published book. The book deals with Arabic studies and security in Israel. Mendel explores how a new type of Language, that of ‘Israeli Arabic’, has been constructed by means of a closed network of Jewish-Israeli actors focused on political and security considerations rather than on a desire for open communication. The book argues that ‘Israeli Arabic’ has evolved as a silent, passive language that gave its users – Jewish-Israeli student who took Arabic in intermediate and high school – a limited set of language skills, especially decoding texts and knowledge of political and security orientations. This has enabled Jewish-Israelis students of Arabic to observe the Arab world but not to interact with Arab people in general and the Palestinian citizens of Israel more particularly. In his talk, Mendel will include parts of his current research on Arabic studies in Jewish schools in the 1920s and 1930s and will therefore be able to highlight not only the securitisation of Arabic studies in Jewish schools in Palestine/Israel but also the roads not taken.

The event poster is available here.