Issue 1/January 2001
Editor, Prof. Barry Rubin
Assistant Editors, Cameron Brown, Elisheva Rosman-Stollman.

CONTENTS (Please credit if quoting; ask permission to reprint):

IMPORTANT NEWS: Barry Rubin, "Bringing Middle East (and International Affairs) Studies into the Twenty-First Century"

1. PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST

2. WEBSITES/GROUPS ONLINE

3. FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS TO E-MAIL PUBLICATIONS

4. FUNDING/SCHOLARSHIPS/FELLOWSHIPS/WRITING OPPORTUNITIES

5. RESEARCH QUERIES-PLEASE HELP

6. AUTHOR'S ALERTS (writers report on their books, articles, and activites)

7. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF MEETINGS, CONFERENCES, LECTURES

IMPORTANT NEWS:  

Bringing Middle East (and International Affairs) Studies into the Twenty-First Century

By Barry Rubin

This is the fifth anniversary of the MERIA project. Its growth has been phenomenal. We have published over 125 full-length scholarly articles as well as Research Guides and a range of other materials.

Our website was used by 43,180 people between August and December 2000. In November 2000 alone, 11,000 journal articles were requested from various issues, 1,550 just for Volume 4, Number 3. Over the three-month life of an issue, the total viewing is about 5,500 (with thousands more requesting it later as a back issue). Compared to the previous year, this is a 400 percent increase, due presumably to our complete revamping of the site and introduction of Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) which has proved very popular.

We thus claim a circulation of 14,500, based on 7,500 direct subscriptions, 5,500 people viewing each issue on the site, and 1,500 receiving the whole issue or articles through various lists and from friends or colleagues. MERIA is clearly the largest-circulation journal on the Middle East in the world. Our system also lets us remain very timely and truly international in both readership and authorship.

Numbers, of course, aren't everything. But we want to make the point that many people do not realize the true impact and potential of new types of academic endeavors. Moreover, people would not be reading and using MERIA (including for classroom assigned reading) if they didn't find the material useful and of high quality.

But people in Middle East studies--as well as international affairs in general and other disciplines--have not yet begun to make the transition to make full use of new media. While technical knowledge holds back many people, much of the problem is psychological and creative in nature.

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) software is a step forward as it allows us to do the layout of a journal, including cover and page numbers. The only difference, then, is that it is the reader who prints out copies when desired, which resemble a journal in every way. If you've never seen this way of presenting texts, please go to our site and look at the .pdf versions. You don't need any computer knowledge to do so.

Let me suggest an eight-point program (additional suggestions are welcome) to use new technologies to improve our research, studies, teaching, analysis, policymaking, and understanding of the Middle East. Most or all of these ideas are applicable to other areas of international relations and area studies.

It is also necessary for funding agencies to rethink how their monies can be most effectively used. Amounts that have been paid for individual books--or even papers--and conferences could have 100 times more impact if applied to some of the new approaches discussed below.

1. Equality for internet publications with printed media. 

Internet publications that meet the existing criteria should have equality in being indexed and being used for academic rank and tenure decisions.

There is no intrinsic reason why a publication should not be treated differently simply because it is not produced originally on paper. Now with adobe acrobat (.pdf) and other systems, such publications can be printed on demand in a way indistinguishable from journals printed exclusively on paper.

2. Internet book publishing.

Today it can take up to one year just to work through the reviewing process and gain acceptance for a book, as well as another year to be published. The resulting books usually sell for $30 to $50, putting them out of range for almost everyone except libraries (whose resources must be reaching their limit). It isn't as if anyone is becoming rich in this process, on the contrary, academic presses are often losing money.

We must work out acceptable ways to publish via the internet, both on a for-sale and free basis, so that authors will receive the proper credit and academic benefits. We should also be very aware of the possibility of creating "living books," monographs, and papers, which can be updated as events, new sources, and the author's own interpretations develop. Such materials can also benefit from criticism so as easily to correct errors or alternative interpretations.

3. The use of teleconferencing and computer telephones for research, meetings, and discussions.

We now have access to low-cost, easy-to-use teleconferencing and voice-conferencing systems that allow us to erase geography in our daily work. These will come into increasing use in the coming years, especially as high-speed internet connections (such as ISDN, DSL, and cable modems) become more widespread. Some specific applications of these systems are discussed in the following points.

4. New styles of research and academic projects.

Currently, the basic project is along the following lines: organize a conference, have people write papers, pay for travel and hotel expenses, meet 1-3 days, publish a book. In addition to this traditional structure, however, there are new options or adaptations.

An international team can be assembled to study a topic in which all exchange materials or smaller groups of partners work on a paper together. When impossible to meet face-to-face, they can meet now by teleconferencing after the papers are completed for a discussion on a higher level than would otherwise occur. The monies saved could be used to pay the researchers. The resulting book or individual papers can be published traditionally or on the internet.

5. Big online archives and research tools where people know how to find them.

We need a system of documentary collections and other materials that can be readily used by researchers. Of course, a vast array of items are already available but they need to be made more useable by the creation of reliable, well-known focal points that can serve as gateways on individual topics to be utilized as guides with systematic outlines of available materials.

6. Specialized seminar groups on every topic.

Those interested in any subject, no matter how specialized, can organize mediated, membership discussion groups involving experts from anywhere in the world. Such seminar groups can be set up in a matter of minutes and can function as superb fora for exchanging ideas, sources, papers, and information on anything from the Ottoman army to Moroccan literature.

7. The use of internet broadcast lectures and conferences.

Using current technology like Realplayer and Windows Media Player, sites can make available on demand either radio (sound only) or television (sound and picture) coverage of lectures and meetings so they would be permanently available to people everywhere in the world. The cost of such technologies is quite affordable. The greatest advantage of this technology, however, is that a lecture or conference attended by one hundred people on one day can now easily be seen by thousands of people--at their conveience--over a long period of time. Of course, as with other media, people must get used to using them.

8. Imbedded footnotes. 

Increasingly, in publishing papers and books on internet, we can use notes linked to the sources being quoted, allowing instant access to sources. This creates an infinite chain of information that provides far more breadth and depth than anything written on paper. Obviously, any quotation out of context will be clearly seen, while translations can be checked as well.

MERIA invites your suggestions for implementing, expanding, or improving these points. You are invited to submit articles for MERIA Journal and to introduce our materials to friends and colleagues. We are especially interested in producing more Research Guides for research materials (see our website for those already available) and ideas for improving our project.

We have only begun to readjust our work and thinking to what can now be achieved. New technology allows us to work faster, use more sources, do far more for less, be more truly international in our cooperation, and reach wider audiences. Of course, technology is no guarantee of better quality work, clearer writing, more accurate analysis, or better understanding. But that's the point of a tool: it let's us have the opportunity to do better. The rest, as always, is up to the skill and conscientiousness of individual scholars.  

1. PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

Robert Manning, The Asian Energy Factor, (Palgrave: NY, 2000), 207pp., ISBN: 0-312-22437-0, $45.00.

This is a superb case study in political analysis. Manning, director of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations' programs on energy and on Asia, analyzes the future of Asia-Middle East relations revolving around the former's growing need for oil.

His first chapter, however, has much wider uses in its critique of how political analysts, journalists, and scholars go about their work. Viewing past forecasts on global changes in population and resources, Manning shows how--and why--such estimates have been so wrong. Failure to allow for new factors--as well as technological and human change--has given rise to excessively pessimistic predictions which, of course, sell better.

In fact, new oil and gasfields have been found faster than old ones were used up, technology increased economically exploitable reserves, and consumption declined due to conservation, economic shifts, and improved technology. One must be extremely conscious of avoiding straight-line projections into the future of what exists at present. Equally, analysts must be self-critical of tendencies to follow the intellectual trends--or newspaper headlines--prevailing at any given moment.

Of course, anyone following Middle East politics and economics has to know something about the oil and gas markets, too. In chapters 2 and 3, Manning shows the growth and strength of Persian Gulf reserves. He also questions the relative importance of future Caspian and Central Asian production. After all, Persian Gulf proven reserves stand at 600 billion barrels while the other region's higher-priced and harder-to-exploit or export proven reserves are only 30 billion barrels at present.

The rest of the book analyzes how China, India, Japan, and Korea are trying to obtain and pay for the steadily larger amounts of oil they need by tightening links with the Middle East. All in all, this is a beautifully written book that deals with a subject of growing importance.

And also…MERIA will appear in the first edition of the "Directory of Scholarly Electronic Journals and Academic Discussion Lists," available both in internet and print versions. For more information, see <http://dsej.arl.org>.

The MERIA site is updating its links. Please send information regarding broken links or recommendations of other links of research interest.

"Fethullah Gulen And His Liberal "Turkish Islam" Movement," by Bulent Aras and Omer Caha, that appeared in the previous issue of the MERIA Journal, was published in an earlier version as: "Turkish Islam's Moderate Face," by Bulent Aras, (Middle East Quarterly, September 1998), pp. 23-29.

A. Books

Tunc Aybak (editor), "Politics of the Black Sea: Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict". (I. B. Tauris, January 2001). $69.50 (cloth). ISBN 1-86064-454-6. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Burchard Brentjes and Helga Brentjes, "Taliban: A Shadow Over Afghanistan". (Rishi Publications, 2000). $28. ISBN: 81-85193-24-X. Orders: Rishi Publications - INDIA. Fax: 0091-542-222337, or: <rishipub@satyam.net.in>.

L. Carl Brown (editor), "Diplomacy in the Middle East: The International Relations of Regional and Outside Powers". (I. B. Tauris, February 2001). $59.50 (cloth). ISBN 1-86064-640-9. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), "The Gulf: Future Security and British Policy". (ECSSR, 2000). 20.00 Pounds (hardcover). ISBN 0-86372-260-1. <http://www.ecssr.ac.ae/03uae.intro7.html>.

John L. Esposito and R. K. Ramazani (editors), "Iran at the Crossroads". (Palgrave, January 2001). $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-312-23816. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Mamoun Fandy, "Saudi Arabia and the politics of Dissent". (Palgrave, February 2001). $18.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-312-23882-7. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Saskia Gieling, "Religion and War in Revolutionary Iran". (I.B. Tauris, 2000). 39.50 Pounds (hardcover). ISBN 1-86064-407-4. <http://www.ibtauris.com/>.

Bulent Gokay (editor), "Politics of Caspian Oil: Battle of the Black Gold". (Palgrave, January 2001). $65 (cloth). ISBN 0-333-73973-6. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Homa Katouzian, "The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis". (I.B. Tauris, 2000). 39.50 pounds (hardcover). ISBN 1-86064-359-0. <http://www.ibtauris.com/>.

Joeseph A. Kechichian, "Succession in Saudi Arabia". (Palgrave, January 2001.) $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-312-23880-0. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Eberhard Kienle, "A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt". (Palgrave, January 2001). $24.50 (paperback). ISBN 1-86064-442-2. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Alon Liel, "Turkey in the Middle East: Oil, Islam and Politics". (Lynne Rienner, April 2001). $55 (hardcover). ISBN 1-55587-909-8. <http://www.rienner.com>.  

Debbie Lovatt, "Turkey Since 1970: Politics, Economics and Society". (Palgrave, February 2001). $65 (cloth). ISBN 0-333-75378-x. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Roel Meijer (editor), "Alienation or Integration of Arab Youth: Between Family, State and Street." (Curzon, 2000). 14.99 Pounds (paperback) ISBN 0-7007-1255-0. <http://130.225.203.37/curzon/catalog.htm>.

Mansoor Moaddel and Kamran Talattof (editors), "Contemporary Debates In Islam: An Anthology of modernist and Fundamentalist Thought." (Macmillan, 2000). 35.00 Pounds (hardcover). ISBN 0-333-75474-3. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Edgar O'balance, "Sudan, Civil Wat and Terrorism, 1956-99". (Palgrave, November 2000). $59.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-312-23360-4. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

Tim Niblock, "'Pariah States' and Sanctions in the Middle East: Iraq Libya Sudan". (Lynne Rienner, April 2001). $49.95 (hardcover). ISBN 1-55587-962-4. <http://www.rienner.com>. 

Paul Rivlin, "Economic Policy and Performance in the Arab World". (Lynne Rienner, January 2001). $49.95 (hardcover). ISBN 1-55587-932-2. <http://www.rienner.com>.

Cheryl A. Rubenberg, "Palestintian Women: Patriarchy and Resistance in the West Bank". (Lynne Rienner, April 2001). $59.95 (hardcover). ISBN 1-55587-956-x. <http://www.rienner.com>.

Barry Rubin and Kemal Kirisci (editors), "Turkey in World Politics: An Emerging Multiregional Power". (Lynne Rienner, January 2001). $55 (hardcover). ISBN 1-55587-954-3. <http://www.rienner.com>.

Paul J. White. "Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernisers?: The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in Turkey". (Zed Books, 2000). $25 (paperback). ISBN 1-85649-822-0. <http://www.palgrave.com>.

B. Journals, Newsletters. Papers

  "Directory of Scholarly Electronic Journals and Academic Discussion Lists" edited by Dru Mogge and Peter Budkam. For more information: <http://dsej.arl.org>. $95 ($65 ARL members) for both print and online versions/ US $70 ($50 ARL member) for online version only: pubs@arl.org or  the ARL Distribution Center at 301-362-8196.

  Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, December 2000 issue is now on the web: <http://www.meib.org/issues/0012.htm>.

  An article on the history of the Middle East library at Cambridge University Faculty of Oriental Studies by Catherine Ansorge <http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/CULIB>. 

2. WEBSITES/GROUPS ONLINE

A.General:

Virtual Library Middle East / North Africa Project new homepage: <http://www.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/ssg/vfbstart.htm>.

IZA  (Institute for the Study of labor) links for economists: <www.iza.org/services/links/links_economists.html>.

A list of institutions in Middle Eastern studies under Akademische Institutionen / Academic Institutions: <http://webis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/ssg/bib.3/ssg.6_23/remote,internet.html>.

John McLaughlin, "Planet Web: An Online Oasis in Syria's Desert". TheStandard.com <http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18419,00.html>.

As'ad Abu Khalil, "In Focus: Women in the Middle East", CIAO. <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/ciao.html>.

CIAO, "Middle East - Arafat's Ambitions". <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/ciao.html>.

The first independent online newspaper of Kosova Turks (in Turkish): <http://yenidonem.bizland.com/>.

The "Eurasian Politician", a new online journal, covering Europe and Asia: <http://www.the-politician.com/index.htm>.

Iran report on "Armenian News Network" site: <http://www.rferl.org/iran-report>.

A list of e-conferences is available at <http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/>.

B. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf

Documentations and articles exposed regarding the conflict over Abu Musa and Tunb islands, <http://www.abumusa.com>, <http://www.mohammedkhatami.com>, <http://www.tunb.org>, <http://www.uaeu.com>.

C. Iran

The memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri (in Persian), banned in Iran, can now be downloaded as one file, 5.6 MB in size and 786 pages, from any of the following sites: <http://www.geocities.com/hamontazeri/>; <http://members.theglobe.com/hamontazeri/>; <http://hamontazeri.tripod.com/>; <http://www.idrive.com/hamontazeri/>. They can also be read page by page on Ayatollah Montazeri's official web site at: <http://www.montazeri.com>. Note that the spelling <http://www.Montazery.com> leads you to Ayatollah Khamenei's official site.

Ayatollah Yusef Saanei, a senior reformist cleric in Iran, web site (in Persian) with some 10 online books, and much other information. <http://www.saanei.org>.

Two new Iranian papers online (entirely in Persian): <http://www.afarineshdaily.com/>; <http://www.entekhab-daily.com/> (conservative).  

3. FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS TO E-MAIL PUBLICATIONS

Middle East Intelligence Bulletin list, with brief summaries of items: <http://www.meib.org/maillist_survey.htm>.

4. FUNDING/SCHOLARSHIPS/FELLOWSHIPS/WRITING OPPORTUNITIES

The Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal seeks articles for publication for future issues. Articles should deal with the modern Middle East and be both scholarly and accessible to a wide range of readers. Preferred length is 4,000 to 7,000 words. MERIA Journal is published every March, June, September, and December. Queries are welcome. All items should be sent to: Barry Rubin, <besa@mail.biu.ac.il>. We also seek Research Guides. Visit our site <http://meria.biu.ac.il> to see the topics and style of previous articles.

Call for papers in English or French for Melcom (Association of Middle East Librarians) International's 23d annual Conference, to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, May 28-30, 2001. The general theme is "Oriental books and manuscripts collections and new information technologies." Send proposed titles to Nathalie Rodriguez, <nrodrig@idf.ext.jussieu.fr>. For further information: <http://www.uni-bamberg.de/unibib/melcom/home.html>.

Call for papers for the International Conference on Policy Reforms, Growth and Development, Meknes, Morocco, September 20-22, 2001. Send papers only, not abstracts. Final decision at the end of March 2001. Topics may include: Implementation, sequencing and speed of reforms, Structural and macroeconomic policies, Political economy of policy reforms, Privatization, deregulation, and competition policy, Institutions, governance and the role of the state, Financial markets and growth, Globalization, integration and cooperation, Reforms, growth and the environment, Trade, growth and poverty. For applications and further information: Professor Khalid Sekkat, Fax: + 32 2 6504123; Email: <imalacor@ulb.ac.be>.

Call For Papers for the University of Wales, Gregynog Conference Centre, conference on "Anthropology, Archaeology and Heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia: The Life and Times of F.W. Hasluck (1888-1920)" to take place November 3-6, 2001. Topics include: Islam and Christianity in the Ottoman Empire, Religious Conversion and ‘Crypto’ Practices, The Archaeology of Religious Monuments in the Balkans, The Role and History of Foreign Schools and Institutes, The Pursuit of Ethnography and the Balkan/Anatolian region, The History of Western Archaeology in the Balkans, The Founding of National Museum Services Nationalism and Archaeology in Greece and Turkey, Western Travelers to the Ottoman Empire. Every effort to will be made to subsidize conference costs very substantially for paper givers. For further information, abstracts and relevant contact details: Dr David Shankland: <D.Shankland@lamp.ac.uk> or <DShankland1@yahoo.co.uk>.  

5. RESEARCH QUERIES-PLEASE HELP