New DCFR program for November 8

(Please register by November 3)

A Conversation about Gaza and Israel with two noted experts on the Middle East Professors Micheline Ishay and Ahmed Abdrabou.

Moderated by Frederick Mayer, Dean of the Josef Korbel School for International Studies, University of Denver

November 8 at a central Denver location

Cocktail hour starts at 5 pm

Dinner at 6

Program at 7-8:15

The war between Hamas in Gaza and Israel has shocked the conscience and riveted the world’s attention to the Middle East for the last month.  Please join us for a conversation with these two noted experts on the Middle East: 

Professor Micheline Ishay is Professor of International Studies and Human Rights at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies and University of Denver. She was awarded the 2022 Human Rights in Higher Education for her outstanding contribution to Human Rights and was recognized as University of Denver Distinguished Scholar. She was the Founding Director of the International Human Rights Degree and managed the program for over two decades; she is Co-Director of the Political Theory Program. She is an affiliate fellow of the Center for Middle East Studies. She is a Vice-Director of the International Council for Diplomacy and Dialogue, Paris.

From 2010 to 2013, Ishay worked in the Gulf region from a unique vantage point, as female American scholar in human rights. She had the good fortune to teach one of the first human rights courses in the Arab world just before and throughout the tumultuous events starting in late 2010. The UAE was in the eye of a historical storm throughout her time there, and she met regularly with diplomats, world leaders, scholars and journalists from the U.S., the West, and the Arab world. As a professor at Khalifa University’s Institute for International and Civil Security, she taught courses in critical thinking at the graduate level, and had the privilege to learn from Emirati and Arab nationals about their hopes and fears as upheaval shook the region around them.

Her books, The History of Human Rights and The Human Rights Reader have been translated into multiple languages and are widely adopted in human rights courses throughout the world. Her book, The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East, was published in 2019 by Yale University Press.

Professor Ahmed Abdrabou is a teaching assistant professor at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. His teachings and research are focused on the Middle East and East Asia. Originally from Cairo, Egypt, Abdrabou has his master's degree from Meiji University and his Ph.D. from Hokkaido University in Japan. He is currently the director of the U.S.-Japan Diplomacy Program (UJDP) at Korbel.  He recently published two books:  

1)    Abd Rabou, A. (2023). From Ali Pasha to the Cairo Fire: The History of Modern Egypt.  Dar Shorouk. (In Arabic).