The Scandinavian Conference on Middle East Studies 24 -27 Rabi al Akhir 1413 / 22-25 October 1992 Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

The Nordic Association of Middle East Studies, which was established
in 1989 in Uppsala, Sweden, recently held its second conference.
Delegates from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland participated.
John O. Voll (who has with Swedish ancestors), chairman of the Middle
East Studies Association (MESA), came as guest lecturer.
The conference's leitmotif was "Diversity and Unity of the Middle
Eastern World," which was also the theme of Voll's lecture. By reconceptualizing
the understanding of Middle East as a holistic region, one in
which sociopolitical, economic, and cultural patterns have been regarded
within a narrow "Muslim" or "Islamic," framework, he objected to standardized
concepts and generalizations. He used the case of the Egyptian
peasant-how new developments and changed structures have transformed
the peasant of the 1970s into the different peasant of the 1990s.
He also argued that concepts themselves can be actors in history when
they have been conceptualized. Thus they do not always describe reality ...