Knowledge Production in Higher Education

Michelle Pace is Professor in Global Studies based in Roskilde, Denmark Jan Claudius Völkel is Senior Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg

‘This book addresses one of the key questions of our time – how research on the MENA and Europe has been influenced by the differing perspectives of educational traditions in a range of countries. The scholars brought together here elucidate the importance of not only bringing but also understanding diverse perspectives that emanate from the systems of training in Europe and the MENA, making clear that this impacts both the questions we ask and the hypotheses we consider. A must-read for scholars as they reflect on their own positionality and those of others in the field.’Michael Robbins, Project Director, Arab Barometer‘In this insightful volume, the editors and their co-authors critically highlight what readers already think they know about “Orient-al” or “Occident-al” knowledge production in higher education. The result offers intelligent interventions that point out what students – and sometimes also faculty – do not actually know about knowledge reproduction of the “other”. This is a timely thought-provoking treatise!’Larbi Sadiki, Professor of Arab Democratization, University of Qatar‘While a growing literature focuses on knowledge production and higher education in and on the Middle East, this timely volume is unique for considering the Middle East and Europe together. It explores the deeply political and expressly dialogic relationships that have produced fields, paradigms and perspectives, while eschewing unilinear genealogies and histories and focusing not only on epistemologies but crucially also on pedagogies.’Seteney Shami, Founding Director, Arab Council for the Social Sciences'Curiosity about the other has been a drive towards creating disciplines, expeditions, and exchange between various parts of the world. Among those parts – but not limited to them – are what is predominantly referred to as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and/or Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region, and Europe. Seeking knowledge, learning, and literature on those regions has been regulated by state and capitalist interests that shaped how these regions are represented. In the recently edited volume by Michelle Pace and Jan Claudius Volkel, the authors outline how the MENA creates knowledge on Europe and vice-versa. The different chapters examine various elements from methodological limitations to funding on both ‘sides,’ while maintaining the initial argument that there are nuances to knowledge creation. Thus, the diversity and variety of knowledge and its means of production should be borderless.' Dafne Carletti & Sara Tonsy, Journal of European Integration

• Introduction – Michelle Pace and Jan Claudius VölkelPart I: History1 Between nostalgia and the colonies: the evolution of French scholarship on the Middle East – Timo Behr2 Orient-ations: German scholarship on the Middle East since the nineteenth century – Sonja Hegasy, Stephan Stetter and René Wildangel3 Middle Eastern Studies in Italy: a field in search of an identity and recognition within and outside academia – Giulia Cimini and Claudia De MartinoPart II: Liminality4 Malta: Boundaries, identity and positionality in the teaching of the Middle East – James Sater5 Teaching Europe in Palestine: resisting the ‘new normal’? – Asem Khalil6 Teaching Europe and the Middle East at universities in Turkey – Aylin Güney, Emre Iseri and Gökay ÖzerimPart III: Orientalism7 Is decolonisation the decisive factor – or even the relevant term? 250 years of Middle East Studies in Denmark – Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen8 Challenges to a transformative education: ‘EUrientalism’ at Egyptian universities – Bassant Hassib and Jan Claudius Völkel9 Teaching the enlightened student: political polarisation and the ongoing quest for critical thinking – Anne de JongPart IV: Hierarchies10 Knowledge production at a time of pandemic: navigating between Syria and the UK – Juline Beaujouan11 Who teaches the Middle East in Europe? A gender perspective – Merve Özdemirkiran-Embel12 ‘In-between’ the academic and policy communities: the position(ality) of think tank(er)s in knowledge production in and on the Middle East and Europe – Daniela HuberA potential paradigm shift in knowledge production: some concluding reflections – Michelle Pace and Jan Claudius VölkelIndex