On March 13, the Department of Near Eastern Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences will host “Academic Freedom and Middle East Scholars after Oct. 7,” one of Cornell’s Freedom of Expression theme year events.

The 5 p.m. talk will feature scholars Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and Marc Lynch, Ph.D. ‘97, professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University (GWU).

The event will take place in Goldwin Smith Hall, Room 132, and is free and open to the public. It will also be livestreamed on Zoom. Register here to attend the talk via Zoom.

“The academic mission of a university – teaching, learning and research – is dependent upon the free exchange of ideas,” said Deborah Starr, professor and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies (A&S). “Telhami and Lynch’s findings about self-censorship among scholars of Middle East studies around Israel/Palestine should concern us all.”

Telhami is also the director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell, the Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College and the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science.

He is the author and editor of many books, including “The Stakes: America and the Middle East,” which was selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003. Telhami has been active in the foreign policy arena, advising every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama.

 Lynch is also the director of the GWU’s Middle East Studies Program at Elliott School of International Affairs and co-director of the Program on African Social Research. He edited the book series “Columbia Studies in Middle East Politics” and is associate editor of “The Monkey Cage” political science blog. His recent books include “The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research After the Arab Uprisings” (edited with Sean Yom and Jillian Schwedler), “The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East,” “The Arab Uprising: Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East,” “The Arab Uprisings Explained” and “Voices of the New Arab Public.”

Kathy Hovis is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.