Campus Watch Interviews ASMEA

In light of Campus Watch’s efforts to bring objective scholarship and intellectual diversity back to the field of Middle East studies, the emergence of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is cause for optimism.

I interviewed ASMEA public affairs director Patrick Creamer to find out more about the organization’s founding, its inaugural conference in April, 2008, and its future. The interview is posted today at Frontpage Magazine and it begins like so:

While the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has long dominated the field, its highly politicized leadership’s inability to withstand criticism, inattention to radical Islam, and apologetic approach towards the West’s foes has left many Middle East studies scholars feeling unwelcome by their umbrella professional organization.

Enter the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Founded last year by Professors Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, ASMEA offers an alternative to MESA’s post-colonialist biases and a venue for studying those elements of Islam and the Middle East that MESA’s leaders ignore or downplay.

To read the entire interview, click here.

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Cinnamon Stillwell

Cinnamon Stillwell analyzes Middle East studies academia in West Coast colleges and universities for Campus Watch. A San Francisco Bay Area native and graduate of San Francisco State University, she is a columnist, blogger, and social media analyst. Ms. Stillwell, a former contributing political columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, has written on a wide variety of topics, including the political atmosphere in American higher education, and has appeared as a guest on television and talk radio.