The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies is proud to present

The 2013 CCAS Annual Symposium Keynote Address

Models of Mediterranean Modernity: The Perspective from the Longue Durée

Featuring Edmund Burke, III

Abstract: Is the modern Mediterranean one place, with a common history? Or several, riven by colonialism? Viewed from a global perspective, the Mediterranean region has enjoyed a common historical experience since 1500. Increasingly semi-peripheral with respect to the world capitalist system, and characterized by weak states, delayed or muffled class formation, agrarian backwardness and the persistence of pastoralism, the coming to modernity of the Mediterranean foreshadowed the historical experience of the Third World in its unity and diversity.

The CCAS has been holding its annual symposium for nearly three decades, and this year’s meeting aims to take stock of the state of Mediterranean studies. An underlying aim for the conference is to commemorate the work of our late colleague, Faruk Tabak, author of The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550-1870: A Geohistorical Approach (Johns Hopkins, 2008).

Please note off-campus event location.