Fifth Seminar on the Middle East

Abstract

Studies of the Middle East and the Islamic world have developed considerably
in Argentina over the last 10 years because, among other reasons, this
country was targeted twice by terrorists who still remain unknown: The
Embassy of Israel was bombed in 1992, and the central headquarters of the
Jewish community (AMIA) was bombed in 1994. Given that even today
we do not know who carried out these attacks and why, the topic of the
Middle East has acquired a public dimension that it did not have before. In
fact, these actions led to the creation of university study centers and chairs
dedicated to the study of the Arab and Islamic worlds.1 However, their academic
output is still in the initial stage.
On 10-11 November 2004, the Fifth Seminar on the Middle East conference
took place at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), in La Plata,
Argentina. The Department of the Middle East of the UNLP’s Institute of
International Relations organizes this conference every 2 years, since it is one
of the few universities that has a specific department dedicated to Middle
Eastern studies. Moreover, it is the only one that has, since 1997, consistently
managed to bring Argentine academics together to share ideas and discuss
the contemporary reality of the Middle East and the Islamic world.
During this conference, articles were presented on a wide range of
themes, always searching for the best way to link together the most relevant
events of contemporary reality. For this reason, in 2002 the focus was on
the implications of the 9/11 tragedy. The current conference concentrated
on the war in Iraq, a logical continuation of the discussion in 2002.
Professors from 14 Argentine universities, as well as from Spain, the
United States, and Mexico, participated in the panels. The first panel analyzed
Islamic thinking and practice after 9/11. Augustín Galli (University
of Buenos Aires [UBA], Argentina) laid out the evolution of Islamic movements
in Algeria. Damián Setton (UBA), who is investigating the various ...