Program

Schedule of conference proceedings

The conference will take place from June 10 to 12, 2026, at Carlos III University in Madrid. Bringing together scholars, artists, and practitioners, it explores critical issues shaping the Middle East and North Africa, including imperial legacies, Palestine, cultural production, political economy, gender, migration, and emerging technologies. Across three days, the program features parallel panels, roundtables, keynote addresses, and film screenings that foster interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue. The conference also honors the intellectual legacy of Tareq and Jacqueline Ismaël through several dedicated sessions.

You can add the presentations to your calendar (Google Calendar, iCalendar, Outlook 365, Outlook Live) by clicking on it and then click on add to calendar.

Day 2

• Session 5A -EU-Arab Partnership, EU Sanctions against MENA Countries, and EU Intervention in MENA Heritage Reconstruction

• Session 5B – Monumental Baghdad: The Complexities of Public Art in the City of Peace

• Session 6A – Roundtable: The Reordering of the “Middle East Region”

• Session 6B – Histories and Practices of Cultural Exploitation

• ROUNDTABLE: MEMORIAL TO TAREQ AND JACQUELINE ISMAEL

• Session 7A – Genocide, Sumud, and Empir

• Session 7B – Géopolitique des migrations artistiques en région MENA: Panel 1

• KEYNOTE ADDRESS : Richard Falk (University of California, Santa Barbara)

• Session 8A – Roundtable : Genocide in Gaza : Eyewitness Testimony, Legal Framing, and Paths to Accountability

• Session 8B – Géopolitique des migrations artistiques en région MENA: Panel 2

• FILM SCREENINGS (location to-be-announced)

Day 3

• Session 9A – Imperial Realities: Genocide, Carcerality, Resistance

• Session 9B – Roundtable: Weaponized AI and the Ethics of Silence: Gaza as the Defining Case for Responsible AI

• Session 10A – Institutions, Power, Law and Religion in the SWANA Region

• Session 10B – New Venues in Arab Cinema

• Lunch

• Session 11A

• Session 11B – Roundtable : Locating Gender and Feminisms in the Middle East and North Africa: A New Handbook of Critical Analysis

• Session 12 A – The Western Sahara Issue, Caught between Aggressive Realpolitik and Weakened Multilateralism, Panel 2: Plundering of Resources and the Normalization of Illegality

• Session 12B – Arab Futurism: On the Role of Imagination, Chronopolitics, and Futurism in Setting Alternative Political Agendas

• CLOSING REMARKS: Terri Ginsberg (Rutgers University)

• FINAL GROUP DINNER