MES@AU is hosting the Egyptian Revolution Working Group (ERWG) for the Academic year 2017-2018. ERWG is a group of Washington DC-based scholars and advanced graduate student who share their research as it relates to the ongoing Egyptian revolution. ERWG began in January 2013 as an initiative organized by three Georgetown scholars, Elliott Colla, Adel Iskandar and Hesham Sallam. It has become a cross-institutional collaboration between scholars at Georgetown, George Washington University, and American University to foster a space for intellectual exchange amidst ongoing political upheaval.

The goal of ERWG is to support scholarship on the ongoing Egyptian revolution against the background of social theories of political change. By convening DC scholars across a range of disciplines, we seek to better understand the social and cultural processes at work in the Egyptian revolution.

ERWG meetings are intended to be more seminar than public lecture, with participants actively shaping discussion alongside presenters.

For more information please contact

Professor Diane Singerman, Department of Government, School of Public Affairs Co-Director, Middle East Studies@ American University.

Egyptian Revolutionary Working Group, Fall Agenda 2014

• Thursday, October 16th, 12:30 and 2 PM.
  Mary Graydon Center, Room 324, American University
  Emad Shahin, "Political Inclusiveness in Egypt: The New Context."
  
• Thursday, October 30, 12:30-2 PM.
  Butler Conference Room 20, American University
  Jennifer Bremer, "'Limited Access Orders' on the Nile: Urban Value Creation by Elites and Informals in Cairo."
• Thursday, December 4th, 12:30-2 PM.
  Mary Graydon Center, Room 245, American University
  Judy Barsalou, "Transitional Justice Without A Transition? Perspectives from Egypt."

Guest Speakers

Emad Shahin is a visiting professor of political science at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. He is professor of public policy, the American University in Cairo (on leave). Currently based in the U.S., he is also a distinguished visiting scholar at Columbia University. His areas of interest include Comparative Politics, Islam and Politics, Political Economy of the Middle East, and Democracy and Political Reform in Muslim societies. Shahin holds a Ph.D. (1989) from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, M.A. (1983) and BA (1980) from the American University in Cairo. A prolific author, Shahin authored, co-authored and co-edited six books and has more than 50 scholarly publications including journal articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries. His publications include Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic Movements in North Africa; co-editorship with Nathan Brown of The Struggle over Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa; and co-authorship of Islam and Democracy (in Arabic). He is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics and co-editor with John L. Esposito of The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics.

Jennifer Bremer is a visiting associate professor of International Development at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (2014-15) and former professor of the practice in public policy and founding chair of the public policy and administration department at the American University-Cairo (2007-2014). Her career has focused on international development, particularly approaches to strengthen private sector approaches to inclusive growth, improving public governance for economic growth, corporate social responsibility, and programming to strengthen international trade and investment. Her recent work has explored informality as a development challenge for urban development and informal urban institutions as a response to governance failures. She regularly serves as a consultant to the OECD in public governance reform in the Middle East and is a founding member and vice president of the Association for Middle Eastern Public Policy and Administration (AMEPPA). While at AUC, Dr. Bremer led the effort to create the first public policy department in the Middle East and developed the region's first MPP. Before joining AUC, she directed the Washington Center of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, a unit of the University of North Carolina business school, from 1990 to 2006, and worked as an agricultural development practitioner for nine years with USAID, Development Alternatives, and Nathan Associates. She holds a PhD (1982) and MPP (1975) from Harvard's Kennedy School, an MA (1977) from Stanford in Development Economics and an ABcl (1972) from Columbia University (Barnard College).

Judy Barsalou is President of the El-Hibri Foundation, based in Washington, DC. Prior to that, she was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, where she conducted research on Egyptian attitudes about justice and accountability in post-Mubarak Egypt. Her career has included two stints with the Ford Foundation, first as a Program Officer in the Foundation's New York and Cairo offices in the 1980s. She returned to Cairo as the Foundation's Regional Representative for the Middle East and North Africa in 2008. Judy has also served as the Vice President of the Grant and Fellowship Program at the United States Institute of Peace; Executive Director of the Middle East Research and Information Project, which publishes Middle East Report; and Director of Academic Programs at the Institute of Governmental Affairs, the University of California, Davis. Her recent publications have focused on memory initiatives and transitional justice in Egypt; the role of memorials in social reconstruction and transitional justice; the challenges of teaching history in societies emerging from violent conflict;and trauma and transitional justice. She holds a PhD in comparative politics from Columbia University.