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January 21, 2021

3CT Joins Arab Uprisings Project

3CT is delighted to be a participant in the collective project Ten Years On: Mass Protests and Uprisings in the Arab World, which will present a yearlong set of events, reflections, and conversations throughout 2021. We will present these collaborative programs under the rubric of our New Global Authoritarianisms initiative.

December 17, 2020 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia. Beginning in 2011, mass uprisings swept North Africa and the Middle East, spreading from the shores of Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of the Arabian Peninsula. A “second wave” of mass protests and uprisings manifested during 2019 in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The persistence of demands for popular sovereignty even in the face of re-entrenched authoritarianism, imperial intervention, and civil strife is a critical chapter in regional and global history.

In an effort to mark, interrogate, and reflect on the Arab uprisings, project partners hope to produce resources for educators, researchers, students, and journalists to understand the last decade of political upheaval historically and in the lived present.

Over the past decade, a plethora of events, texts, and artistic and cultural productions have navigated the last decade’s spectrum of affective and material registers. We hope to contribute to these efforts through a historically grounded, theoretically rigorous approach that collaboratively interrogates the multiple questions the Arab uprisings continue to pose.

This was originally a collaborative effort between the Arab Studies Institute, Princeton’s Arab Barometer project, George Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, and Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. It quickly expanded and gained more partners from other institutions across the region, as well as Europe and the United States. The collective now includes the Arab Studies Institute, Princeton’s Arab Barometer, GMU’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Project, Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies), the Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS), American University of Beirut’s Asfari Institute, Brown University’s Center for Middle East Studies, UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Middle East Studies, University of Chicago’s Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT), Harvard University’s Center for Middle East Studies, University of Exeter’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Birzeit University’s Department of Political Science, Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, AUC Affiliates, Georgetown University (Qatar), The Global Academy (MESA Affiliated), and Institute of Palestine Studies.

Read more about the project here.