This is part of the MENA Politics Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall 2020.
Hello from APSA’s International Programs. We hope you and your loved ones continue to stay safe and healthy wherever you are.
In response to the continued disruption in working, teaching, and research created by the pandemic, APSA has launched several new programs to support our members: APSA Educate is an open access online library for political science teaching and learning materials. You can easily search for, submit, and save educational materials to your personal library. APSA Preprints is a free-to-access prepublication platform dedicated to early research outputs in political science and related disciplines. It offers rapid turnaround times and allows for quick dissemination of working papers. Additional resources and program updates can be found on APSA’s COVID-19 resource page.
As for APSA’s MENA Programming, some projects are still going forward while others have been postponed. Although the in-person workshop of the 2020 APSA MENA Program on “Securitization and Insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa,” has been postponed, workshop co-leaders invited 16 fellows to participate in a 4-week virtual program in July/August 2020. The program focused on research feedback and thematic discussions, and we hope to be able to organize an in-person workshop at some point in 2021.
We are also glad to report that the MENA Research Development Group (RDG) took place this year as part of APSA’s annual meeting program. We thank our partners at the MENA Politics Section and POMEPS for running another successful program that featured 5 early career scholars who engaged in 2 days of research feedback and professional development discussions.
Looking ahead to next year, we are now accepting applications for the 2021 IQMR summer program. We encourage those interested in receiving advanced training in qualitative and mixed methods to apply through this link by December 12, 2020. All those interested in the quantitative summer program organized by ICPSR at the University of Michigan should check our website for updates on next year’s opportunity.
The departmental collaboration initiative continues to attract interest from faculty members and departments at Arab Universities. APSA staff is fine tuning the details of two programs with University of Tunis El-Manar, Tunisia and Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez, Morocco. The tailored programs will support graduate students and faculty members. We are also planning to convene a strategic planning workshop for faculty members from across the Arab world to share experiences and best practices on organizing projects within university departments.
Finally, the Arab Political Science Network (APSN) has created a virtual library that will feature a syllabi bank (aimed at collecting syllabi from universities in the region in Arabic, English and French) as well as a video library of its public webinars and subtitled educational videos. APSN encourages all scholars, especially those based in the region, teaching courses in political science as well as other topics focused on the region to share their syllabi by emailing Mona Farag at mfarag@arabpsn.org.
After a successful and well attended webinar on Research in Pandemic Times in collaboration with Al-Fanar Media, APSN will be collaborating with the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship in organizing a webinar on “Teaching Gender and Politics in the Arab World” on October 27, 2020. You can find more information here or by following APSN on Twitter
If you are interested in the learning more or getting involved with the APSA MENA Project, please contact us at menaworkshops@apsanet.org.
Best to all in the coming months and stay well!
Ahmed Morsy and Andrew Stinson
APSA MENA Project