American University of Sharjah

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is Associate Professor of Political Science at the United Arab Emirates University. He currently edits the Gulf Strategic Report. His research interests are political change and security in the Gulf states. He has authored Emirates Foreign Policy, The Arab World between Two Centuries, and The Gulf Regional System. Some of his recent articles include, "Political Globalization," "Globalization: Origin and Process," and "The Gulf Cooperation Council."

Gaber Asfour heads the Supreme Court of Culture in Egypt. He held positions at the University of Cairo for 27 years, and most recently as the Head of the Department of Arabic there. He has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University, University of Stockholm, San'aa University, and the University of Wisconsin. He was Editor-in-Chief of Fusul for seven years. Some of his books include Countering Fanaticism, Times of the Novel, Contemporary Theories, The Scope of Our Times, Flashes of Reason, Illuminations, In Defense of the Enlightenment, Enlightenment Versus Obscurantism, Refracting Mirrors: A Study in Taha Hussein's Criticism, and The Concept of Poetry: A Study of the Critical Heritage. He is a prolific author, having published in excess of 22 journal articles and chapters, and 55 published papers.

Paul Dresch is Senior Lecturer of Anthropology and Fellow of St. John's College at the University of Oxford. His research interests range widely, from globalism to ethnography, ethnohistory, and archaeology of traditional Yemen. Among his numerous publications, perhaps the most acclaimed are his recent volumes, A History of Modern Yemen (Oxford University Press), and Tribes, Government and History in the Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon).

John W. Fox is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Arab and International Studies at the American University of Sharjah. He held positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Union College, and at Baylor University, where he chaired Anthropology for 19 years. His writing deals with lineage-based states, political/religious movements in various parts of the world, including the USA, and on how notions of time (linear temporality) have been reformulated for the social relations of globalism in the epistemology of the social sciences. He authored two books on segmentary states and political anthropology at Cambridge University Press (UK), two books which examine how the Mayan cultural identity has been reformulated for global contexts, at the University of New Mexico Press and the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala. His articles have appeared in Current Anthropology, the American Anthropologist, American Antiquity, among others, and chapters have appeared in numerous university press volumes. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Social Affairs, and served as President of the Central Texas Archaeological Society for 15 years and as editor of their journal.

Adel Gamal is Professor and Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Zayed University. He held positions at the American University of Cairo, University of California, Berkeley and at the University of Arizona, where he served as the Acting Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He has held a number of offices in the American Association of Teachers of Arabic, including President. He has published 12 books, among which al-Muntakhab fi Mahasin Ash'ar al'Arab which won the award of the Egyptian Arabic Language Academy, and has published in excess of 30 chapters and articles.

Michael C. Hudson is Professor of International Relations and Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he also directed the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. He served as President of The Middle East Studies Association. Among his numerous books are The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon; The World Handbook of Political and Social, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy, and The Palestinians: New Directions, and Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). His most recent article is "Imperial Headaches: Managing Unruly Regions in an Age of Globalization," Middle East Policy IX:4 (December 2002). Articles and chapters have appeared in Jerusalem in History, Third World Quarterly, The Yemeni War of 1994, The Islamist Dilemma, International Organizations and Ethnic Conflict, International Negotiation, Middle East Journal, and PS: Political Science and Politics, Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration among others.

Sulayman Khalaf is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sharjah. He has held positions in Kuwait, Harvard University, American University of Beirut, UCLA, American University of Dubai and in Stockholm. His research has focused on Arab societies in the Euphrates region in Syria and in the Gulf. He addresses theoretical issues on tribal and peasant communities within the contexts of modern nation building, tribal politics, the oil-welfare state, globalization and the reconstructed heritage culture in the Gulf, and ethnic identity in the Gulf.

Khaled M. Al-Khazraji is Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, United Arab Emirates. He served as Associate Dean of the College of Business and Economics of the United Arab Emirates University. He has authored Immigrants and Cultural Adaptation in the American Workplace (Garland Pub.), and articles in Management Communication Quarterly, Southeast Decision Sciences Institute Proceeding, among others.

Clovis Maksoud is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, D.C. He was the Chief Representative of the League of Arab States in India from 1961-1966, and served as the Senior Editor of Al-Ahram and then Chief Editor of Al-Nahar Weekly. He was the Chairperson and Convener of many conferences on environment and development, human rights, population, and disarmament. Ambassador Maksoud was appointed as the League of Arab States' Chief Representative to the United Nations in 1979. Among his recent publications on the Middle East and the global south are "The Meaning of Non-Alignment," "The Crisis of the Arab Left," "Reflections on Afro-Asianism," and "The Arab Image."

Nada Mourtada-Sabbah is Assistant Professor of Political Studies and International Relations at the American University of Sharjah and serves as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Affairs. She initiated and edits the English-language section of the JSA quarterly. Prior to AUS, she held a position at the University of Paris, where she taught and researched public law topics from a comparative standpoint. While at AUS, she has held visiting research positions at the Congressional Research Service (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and the Sorbonne, Paris. She has published Executive Privilege in the United States (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence) and Is War a Political Question? (New York: Huntington) (with Louis Fisher), and has articles in Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique en France et à l'Etranger, White House Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and the French Annuaire of International Relations, among others.

Ahmed Al Mutawa holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Georgetown University. He is Assistant Professor of Economics and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Planning at the United Arab Emirates University. He served as the Chairman of the Economics Department at the College of Business and Economics at UAE during the years 1992-1997. He researches in economic development and econometrics, and specializes in macroeconomic modeling, labor issues, monetary policy and the effects of oil shocks. He has numerous publications in international and regional journals. In addition to his academic contributions and frequent participation in conferences and local media, Dr. Al Mutawa is heavily involved in consulting.

Mohammed Al Mutawa is Associate Professor of Sociology at the United Arab Emirates University where he served as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Affairs. His books include The Development and Social Change in the UAE, The Consumption Culture and New Trends, and Social Problems in the UAE. His articles have appeared in International Sociology, Al Bas'ir, Journal of Social Sciences, Journal of Gulf Studies and Arabian Peninsula, among others.

Khaldoun Al-Naqeeb is Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Psychology at Kuwait University, where he served as Dean of the College of Arts. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Social Sciences and the Arab Journal for the Humanities. His books include (titles translated from Arabic): Tribalism and Democracy: The Case of Kuwait, The Constitutional Crisis in the Arab World: Secularism, Fundamentalism, and the Question of Liberty, and The Authoritarian State in the Contemporary Arab Mashriq. Among his many journal articles is "The Predictive Value of Ibn Khaldun's Theses" and "In the Beginning it was Conflict: The Debate of State and Nation, Ethnicity and Religion."

Tim Niblock is Professor of Arab Gulf Studies and Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He has held positions at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, and University of Reading, chaired Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Durham, and was Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. At the University of Exeter, he established and served as deputy-director of the Centre for Arab Gulf Studies and as the Director of the Middle East Politics Programme. He has written on the politics, political economy and international relations of the Arab world. Among his numerous books are: "Pariah States" and Sanctions in the Middle East: Iraq, Libya and Sudan, Muslim Communities in the New Europe, Economic and Political Liberalisation in the Middle East, Class and Power in Sudan, Iraq: the Contemporary State, State, Society and Economy in Saudi Arabia, and Social and Economic Development in the Arab Gulf.

Mohammed Al Roken is Associate Professor of Public Law and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Sharia & Law at United Arab Emirates University. He Chairs the UAE Jurists' Association and is a practicing advocate and legal consultant in local and federal courts. He has authored seven books on human rights, UAE affairs and the Arab ñ Israeli conflict. His numerous journal articles and chapters focus on public law subjects, and most recently on the dispute between UAE and Iran over the three islands in the Arabian Gulf.

Fatima Al Sayegh is Associate Professor of History at the United Arab Emirates University and will assume this year a Fulbright appointment at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. She currently is Managing Editor of Journal of Social Affairs. Her research interests lie in modern political changes within the Gulf, and namely Political Changes in the Oil Monarchies: The Case of the United Arab Emirates, 1971-2001.

Fatima S. Al-Shamsi is Associate Dean of the College of Business and Economics at the United Arab Emirates University. Her articles and chapters have appeared in The Economy of Abu Dhabi, Middle East Business and Economic Review, Change and Development in the Gulf, The Future of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Economia International, Journal for Administrative Sciences, The Journal of Law, Economics and Business Administration, among others.

Ismail A. Sirageldin is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Population Dynamics, and International Health at Johns Hopkins University. He founded the Johns Hopkins Interdepartmental Public Health Economics Graduate Program and the Advisory Committee of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey. Among his many consultancies, he chaired the development of the Five Year Research program for the Indonesian National Institute of Public Health, an Employment Policy Mission to Jordan, the five-year population research program for the Arab League, human resource development for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. His books include Productive Americans, Non-market Components of National Income, Demographic Transitions and Socioeconomic Development, Evaluating Population Programs, Saudis in Transitions: The Challenges of a Changing Labor Markets, Population Policies and Development in the 1980s, The Challenges of Globalization and Human Resource Development in the Arab World: Myth and Reality, and Human Capital: Population Economics in the Middle East. He was awarded the Kuwait Prize for the Advancement of Science in Economics and the Social Sciences for his "scientific contributions to human resource development and population policies in the Arab region."

Steve Smith is Vice-Chancellor of Exeter University. He has held positions in International Politics at Aberystwyth University and served as director of the Center for Public Choice Studies at the University of East Anglia. He has received numerous awards, including most recently the International Studies Association (USA) Susan Strange Award for the academic who most challenged the established models of modernism, from a globalist perspective. Last year he became only the second UK academic to be elected president of the International Studies Association in the US. Professor Smith is credited with transforming Aberystwyth's department of international politics, taking it from a grade three in the Research assessment exercise to a five, and then a five-star in 2001. His books include Globalization of World Politics, International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, International Relations Theory Today, Deciding Factors in British Politics, Belief Systems and International Relations, The Cold War Past and Present, International Relations: British and American Approaches, Politics and Human Nature and Foreign Policy Adaptation.

Winfred L. Thompson is Chancellor of the American University of Sharjah. He was President of the University of Central Arkansas for 14 years, and held vice presidencies at Arkansas State University and the University of Arkansas. Early in his career he held positions at the Library of Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. His interests in globalism draw on his professional experience as an historian (Ph.D. University of Chicago), and as a practicing attorney (J.D. George Washington University).

Rodney J. A. Wilson is Professor of Economics in the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Durham. He chairs the academic committee of the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance (London), and has chaired the Council of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. He researches trade and investment in the Middle East, as well as Islamic economics and finance. His recent books include Economic Development in the Middle East, Economics, Ethics and Religion: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Economic Thought, and The Political Economy of the Middle East. His some 40 articles and chapters have appeared in Middle Eastern Studies, the Journal of Islamic Studies, Islamic Banking and Finance: New Perspectives on Profit Sharing and Risk, and Globalisation and the Middle East (Royal Institute of International Affairs).

Yousif Khalifa Al-Yousif is Associate Professor of Economics at the United Arab Emirates University. He researches international economics and economic development and is published in the Review of Financial Economics, Journal of the Social Sciences, Defense and Peace Economics, International Economic Journal, The Indian Economic Journal, Mustaqbal Al-Arabi, Journal of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences, among others.