Carthage Seminars
The Third Annual Reset Dialogues Seminars on Pluralism in North Africa
International Conference and Summer School ONLINE
29 June – 03 July, 2020
Reset Dialogues on Civilizations | Reset Dialogues US | The Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts (Beit al-Hikma)
With the support of the Henry Luce Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Speakers: Lisa Anderson (Columbia University), Giancarlo Bosetti (Reset Dialogues on Civilizations), Amel Boubekeur (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Soumia Boutkhil (Mohamed I University), Jocelyne Cesari (Georgetown University | Birmingham University), Abdelmajid Charfi (Beit el-Hikma | University of Tunis), Mohammad Fadel (University of Toronto), Alessandro Ferrari (University of Insubria), Silvio Ferrari (University of Milan – La Statale), Mohamed Haddad (Carthage University), Nader Hammami (University of Tunis), Sari Hanafi (American University of Beirut), Mohammed Hashas (Reset DOC | LUISS University | FSCIRE), Nader Hashemi (University of Denver) Suzanne Kassab (Doha Institute), Mounir Kchaou (University of Tunis), Jonathan Laurence (Reset Dialogues US | Boston College), Alberto Melloni (Modena and Reggio Emilia University), Mohamed Mesbahi (Mohammed V University), Abdeljabbar Rifai (Iraq Council for Interfaith Dialogue), Hala Wertani (Beit al-Hikma), Debora Spini (Syracuse University in Florence), Federica Zoja (Reset Dialogues on Civilizations).
Biographies (DAY – SESSION – PANEL)
Day 1 – Wednesday 01 July 2020
Session 1 – Panel 1
Mohammad H. Fadel
Bio
Mohammad H. Fadel is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006. Professor Fadel wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law while at the University of Chicago and received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, New York, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations. Professor Fadel also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Professor Fadel has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history and Islam and liberalism.
Jocelyne Cesari
Bio
Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics and is director of research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; at Georgetown University she is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs teaches religion in the Department of Government. Since 2018 she has the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. President elect of the European Academy of Religion (2018-19), her work on religion and politics has garnered recognition and awards: 2020 Distinguished Scholar of the religion section of the International Studies Association, Distinguished Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and the Royal Society for Arts in the United Kingdom. She is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University Institute for Religion, Politics and Society. Her new book, We God’s Nations: Political Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations” is forthcoming at Cambridge University Press. Her most recent publications are: What is Political Islam? (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2018 special mention of the religion section of the International Studies Association); Islam, Gender and Democracy in a Comparative Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2017), co-authored with Jose Casanova; The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Why the West Fears Islam: An Exploration of Islam in Western Liberal Democracies (2013). Her book When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States (2006) is a reference in the study of European Islam and integration of Muslim minorities in secular democracies. She edited the 2015 Oxford Handbook of European Islam. She coordinates a major web resource on Islam in Europe: http://www.euro-islam.info/.
Mohamed Haddad (Carthage University, Tunisia)
Bio
Mohamed Haddad is an Islamologist, professor at universities in Tunisia, author of several works on Muslim reformism. Since 2011, he has published two books and dozens of analytical articles on the impact of the Arab revolutions on freedoms.
Tunisia from 2014 to 2020: how to assess the democratic process?
The objective of the conference is to give a reading of the democratization process as it has taken place since the adoption of the new constitution in 2014 and until today, in particular concerning the evolution of the political regime and freedoms. It will also be the matter of answering the question: should we already think of introducing changes to the new constitution?
Session 1 – Panel 2
Abdeljabbar Rifai
Bio
Rifai is an Iraqi theologian; he studied in the Hawza of Najaf in Iraq, and Qom in Iran, towards which he left to continue his studies during his exile; holds a PhD in Islamic Philosophy. He has been calling for the formation of new theology and philosophy of religion in the Arab speaking world for the last three decades; for this reason, he has been editing the widely circulated magazine “Contemporary Islamic Issues” (Qadaya Islamiyya Mu’asira”, since 1997, some issues of which were selected and translated by the PISAI Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome in 2012 as an homage to its efforts as the most specialized magazine in the philosophy of religion in Arabic. After returning home, Iraq, IN 2004, he established the “Center for the Philosophy of Religion in Baghdad”, which has published some 250 books so far; currently, he is editing the “Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion” in 8 volumes, four of which are already published so far. Rifai has received various rewards, the latest of which is from Cultural Achievements Award in Doha in December 2017, for his defence of pluralism, dialogue, and co-existence.
أ. د. عبدالجبار الرفاعي
سيرة فكرية مختصرة
عبدالجبار الرفاعي مفكر عراقي، مواليد ذي قار في جنوب العراق 1954. تلقى علومَ الدين في حوزة النجف منذ 1978، اضطر لمغادرة وطنه 1980، انتقل إلى حوزة قم، فأكمل دراستَه، وأصبح أحدَ الأساتذة فيها.
سنة 2005 حصل على دكتوراه فلسفة إسلامية بتقدير امتياز، وقبل ذلك حصل على ماجستير علم كلام 1990 بتقدير امتياز، وبكالوريوس إلهيات ومعارف إسلامية، بتقدير امتياز أيضا 1988.
منذ أكثر من 30 عاما بدأ عبدالجبار الرفاعي يدعو لتأسيس فلسفة الدين وعلم الكلام الجديد في المجال الناطق بالعربية. وسعيًا لتحقيق هذا الهدف أسس سنة 1997 المجلةَ التخصصية “قضايا إسلامية معاصرة” ، التي مازالت تصدر حتى اليوم 23 عامًا. صدر العددُ الجديد منها شتاء 2020، تمحورت أهدافُها حول بناء فلسفة الدين وعلم الكلام الجديد في المجال الناطق بالعربية. خصّص “المعهد البابوي في روما” التابع للفاتيكان كتابَه السنوي 2012 لمجلة قضايا إسلامية معاصرة، فاختار مجموعةَ دراسات مما نشر فيها وترجمها، ونشرها في كتابه السنوي، احتفاءً بالمهمة التي نهضت بها في تجديد علوم الدين، وبوصفها الدوريةَ الأهمَّ المتخصصةَ في الأديان بالعربية.
أسّس عبدالجبار الرفاعي سنة 2004 “مركز دراسات فلسفة الدين ببغداد”، بعد عودته إلى وطنه من المنفى. أصدر المركزُ حتى اليوم أكثرَ من 250 كتابًا في عدة سلاسل، مثل: كتاب “فلسفة الدين وعلم الكلام الجديد”، وكتاب “تحديث التفكير الديني”، وكتاب “ابستمولوجيا السوسيولوجيا”، وكتاب “ثقافة التسامح”، وكتاب “فلسفة وتصوف”، وكتاب “قضايا إسلامية معاصرة”.
حرّر عبدالجبار الرفاعي أخيرا: “موسوعة فلسفة الدين”، وأصدر منها 4 مجلدات، ويجري الاعداد لاصدارها في طبعة كاملة بتحريرٍ جديد، تقع في 8 مجلدات، تغطي الموضوعات الأساسية في فلسفة الدين وعلم الكلام الجديد، اختصّ فيها كلّ موضوع محوري بمجلدٍ.
مُنِح عبد الجبار الرفاعي عدةَ جوائز، آخرها الجائزة الأولى للإنجاز الثقافي في الدوحة، على منجزه الفكري الرائد وآثاره في تأصيل المعرفة وثقافة الحوار، وترسيخ القيم السامية للتنوع والتعددية والعيش المشترك، الدوحة- قطر 14 ديسمبر 2017.
بريد ألكتروني: qahtanee@gmail.com
Mohamed Mesbahi محمد المصباحي
Mohamed Mesbahi is a Moroccan thinker and professor of philosophy at Mohamed V University in Rabat. He has published widely on Arab-Islamic philosophy and themes related to reason, ontology, being, self, and unity. His books in Arabic include: Transformations in the History of Being and Reason in Arab-Islamic Philosophy, 1995; The Other Face of Modernity of Ibn Roshd, 1998; Yes and No: Ibn Arabi and Open Thought, 2006; Islamic Reason between Cordoba and Isfahan, 2006; Reason and Polity in Contemporary Arab Philosophy, 2013.
محمد المصباحي
مفكر من المغرب، أستاذ الفلسفة بجامعة محمد الخامس بالرباط. اشتغل بقضايا الفلسفة العربية الإسلامية كالعقل والخيال والوجود والوحدة والذات والحق. صدر له: تحولات في تاريخ الوجود والعقل: بحوث في الفلسفة العربية الإسلامية (1995)؛ والوجه الآخر لحداثة ابن رشد (1998)؛ ونعم ولا: ابن عربي والفكر المنفتح (2006)؛ ومن الوجود إلى الذات: بحث في فلسفة ابن رشد (2006)؛ والعقل الإسلامي بين قرطبة وأصفهان(2006)؛ ومن أجل حداثة بأصوات متعددة، ورش لفلسفات الحق والثقافة والسياسة والدين (2010)؛ والعقل والمدينة في الفلسفة العربية المعاصرة .(2013)
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab
Bio
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab is the author of Contemporary Arab Thought. Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective (2010) and Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution. The Egyptian and Syrian Debates (2019), both published by Columbia University Press. Since 2016 she has been Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Her research interests lie in modern and contemporary history of Arab thought and culture.
Mohammed Hashas
Bio
Mohammed Hashas is the Scientific Coordinator of Reset DOC Seminars in North Africa, and a
member of its Advisory Board. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at La Pira Library and
Research Center for Islamic History and Doctrines in Palermo, which is part of FSCIRE Foundation for Religious Studies of Bologna, Italy. He also teaches at the Department of Political Science of LUISS University of Rome. He holds a PhD in Political Theory from LUISS (2013). His research areas are Contemporary Arab-Islamic Thought, and Islamic Thought in Europe.
Hashas has authored The Idea of European Islam (2019), Intercultural Geopoetics (2017), and has led the edition of Islam, State and Modernity: Mohamed Abed al-Jabri and the Future of the Arab World (2018), and Imams in Western Europe (2018), besides various journal articles and book chapters. His forthcoming edited volumes include Islamic Ethics and the Trusteeship Paradigm: Taha Abderrahmane’s Philosophy in Comparative Perspectives (November 2020).
Session 1 – Panel 3
Silvio Ferrari
Bio
Professor of Law and Religion, University of Milan. Visiting professor at the University of California (Berkeley, 1994 and 2001), the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (London, 1998-99) and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, Sorbonne, 2004), the University of Leuven (2000-2012), Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton 2014).
His publications in English include Handbook of Religious Laws (Routledge 2019), Religious Rules, State Law, and Normative Pluralism. A comparative overview (together with R. Cristofori and R. Bottoni), Springer, 2016) Handbook of Law and Religion (Routledge 2015), Religion in Public Spaces (Ashgate 2012, ed. together with S. Pastorelli), Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe, Leuven, Peeters, 2003 (ed. together with W. Cole Durham, Jr. and E. A. Sewell).
His main fields of interest are law and religion in Europe, comparative law of religions (particularly Jewish law, Canon law and Islamic law) and the Vatican policy in the Middle East.
He is honorary president of ICLARS (International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies). In 2012 he has been invited to deliver the Messenger Lectures at Cornell University and has received the Distinguished Service Award of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies of the J. Reuben Clark Law School (BYU, Provo, Utah).
Alberto Melloni
Bio
Alberto Melloni – secretary of the Bologna, Foundation for Religious Studies of Bologna – is full professor at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia and Chair Holder of the Unesco Chair on Religious Pluralism and Peace at the University of Bologna. He is the founder of the European Academy of Religion and team leader Rei_Res and Resilience, the research infrastructure on religious studies. He wrote more than 400 articles and dozens of books on the history of Councils, on John XXIII and several subjects. Member of the “Accemia dei Lincei”, Melloni is columnist of «La Repubblica», and RaiNews.
Jonathan Laurence
Bio
Jonathan Laurence is Professor of Political Science at Boston College and the director of Reset Dialogues US. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard. He is author of assorted articles and three books: Coping with Defeat: Islam, Catholicism and the State (2021), The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims (2012) and Integrating Islam: Religious and Political Challenges in Contemporary France (2006). He was a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2003-2018.
Federica Zoja
Bio
Federica Zoja began her journalistic career in the national economic press in Milan in 1995. In the early 2000s she moved to Brussels, where she followed the work of the European institutions for newspapers and agencies – both Italian (ItaliaOggi, ApCom) and foreign (Le Soir). In 2005 she left Belgium for Egypt, where she remained until 2009 and worked as a reporter on North Africa and the Middle East (MENA). She also followed the economic and political current affairs of the countries in the area as a war reporter for Avvenire, Il Sole24Ore, Radio24, and Swiss Italian Radio. Back in Italy, she continues to follow the MENA area journalistically for ResetDoc and Avvenire. Her geo-political analyses have been published by Istud, Ispi, La Civiltà Cattolica, Travaux et Jours (Université Saint-Joseph of Beyrouth).
Session 2 – Panel 1
Debora Spini
Bio
Debora Spini got her Ph.D. from Scuola di Studi Superiori Sant’Anna in Pisa. Spini teaches at New York University in Florence and Syracuse University in Florence. Spini’s research interests focus on religion and politics, with a special interest on Protestant theology, secularisation/post secularisation, as well as the role of religion in violent conflicts. Recently, her research extended to the manipulation of religion by right wing populist movements and parties. On these topics, Spini has published in Italy and abroad, and has given papers in Europe, US, India and Brasil.
Alessandro Ferrari
Bio
Alessandro Ferrari is Full Professor of Ecclesiastical Law and Comparative Law of Religions at the University of Insubria (Varese and Como) and director of the Research Center ”Religions, Rights and Economies in the Mediterranean Space” (REDESM) at the same university. His research interests focus on the transformation of the right to religious freedom in Europe and in the countries of the MENA area. In the second half of 2018-2019 he has been Visiting Fellow at the Islamic Legal Studies Program of the Harvard Law School (Law and Social Change). In 2018 he was Directeur d’Etudes invited to the Ecole Pratiques des Hautes Etudes while in 2014-2015 he was Roberta Buffett Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University, Evanston.
Nader Hammami
Bio
Nader Hammami obtained his doctorate from the University of Manouba in 2010 with a thesis on “The image of the Companions (Sahaba) in Hadith’s collections” (Published in 2014), while holding the EUME Fellowship in Berlin in 2009-2010. His research interests are in Quranic studies, historical and religious imaginary in Arab-Muslim civilization. Among his publications: Islam al-fuqaha (“Islam of Jurists”, in Arabic); Beirut 2006; The Vulgate and its Readings, a collective 5-volume edition edited by Professor Abdelmajid Charfi), Beirut, 2016; (co-editor) The Report on the State of Religion in Tunisia 2011-2015: an analytical and statistical study, Mominoun Without Borders, 2018; The Islamic historical imagination (Nirvana editions, Tunisia 2020).
Giancarlo Bosetti
Bio
Giancarlo Bosetti is the editor-in-chief and one of the founder of Reset DOC and Reset, a cultural magazine he founded in 1993. He was vice-editor-in-chief of the Italian daily L’Unità. He is the editor-in-chief of the web-magazine of Resetdoc.org. He is currently a columnist for the Italian daily La Repubblica and he has been teaching sociology of communication at University La Sapienza, and University Roma Tre. He published La lezione di questo secolo, a book-interview with Karl Popper; Cattiva maestra televisione, (ed.) writings by Karl Popper and others Among his books: Spin. Trucchi e Tele-imbrogli della Politica, Marsilio, 2007; Il fallimento dei laici furiosi (2009); La verità degli altri. La scoperta del pluralismo in dieci storie, Bollati Boringhieri, 2020.
Session 2 – Panel 2
Soumia Boutkhil
Bio
Dr. Soumia Boutkhil, is full Professor of English and gender studies at Mohammed I University, Oujda, Morocco. She has studied in Morocco, France and the USA. Dr. Boutkhil is the initiator and former head of the Graduate interdisciplinary program “Gender, Society and Human Development.” As a Fulbright Visiting Scholar for 2008-9 at Rutgers University, Dr. Boutkhil wrote and lectured extensively on feminine literature and women’s status in Morocco with a particular focus on the problematic intersections of law and religion. Dr. Boutkhil co-founded the “Identity and Difference” research group at her university. She coedited a number of books among which Minority Matters: Literature, Theory, Society ( 2005), Representing Minorities: Studies in Literature and Ciriticism ( 2006 and 2008), and The World as A Global Agora: Critical Perspectives on Public Space (2008). North African Women after the Arab Spring: In the Eye of the Storm (2017), also co-editor of the online journal Ikhtilaf (Difference) of critical humanities and social studies. Over and above her academic commitments, Dr. Boutkhil is actively involved in civil society as a member of the Hijra Clinique Juridique, she currently serves as the Director of the Hijra Legal Aid clinic for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Oujda.
Amel Boubekeur
Bio
Amel Boubekeur researches at the EHESS. Her research focuses on Maghreb politics, democratization in the Arab world, Euro-Arab/US–Arab relations, and Islam in Europe. She has been a research associate at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and the Centre Jacques Berque, a non-resident fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP-Berlin), a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, a resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and the head of the Islam and Europe Programme at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. She is the author and editor of Le voile de la mariée(2004), Islam: The Challenges for Society and Public Policy (2007), and Whatever Happened to the Islamists? (2012), besides various essays and articles.
Mounir Kchaou
Bio
Tunisian researcher and academic, Professor of Higher Education in Philosophy, University of Tunis. He specializes in Anglo-American political and moral philosophy. He has written several books, including: John Rawls in French, and translations, including: “An Introduction to Contemporary Political Philosophy” (2010) by Will Kemlichka, and “Taking Rights Seriously” (2015) by Ronald Dorkin.
Session 2 – Panel 3
Lisa Anderson
Bio
Lisa Anderson is Special Lecturer and James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations Emerita at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
Dr. Anderson served as President of the American University in Cairo for five years, from 2011-2016. Prior to her appointment as President, she was the University’s provost, a position she had assumed in 2008. She is Dean Emerita of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, where she led the school from 1997-2007. She was on the faculty of Columbia since 1986; prior to her appointment as Dean, she served as Chair of the Political Science Department and Director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute; she held the Shotwell Chair in the Political Science Department. She has also taught at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and in the Government and Social Studies departments at Harvard University.
Dr. Anderson’s scholarly research has included work on state formation in the Middle East and North Africa; on regime change and democratization in developing countries; and on social science, academic research and public policy both in the United States and around the world. Among her books are The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980 (1986) and Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century (2003); she has also published numerous scholarly articles.
Dr. Anderson is a trustee of the Aga Khan University, Tufts University and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. She is a member emerita of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, served as elected President of the Middle East Studies Association, and as Chair of the Board of the Social Science Research Council. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations, she has received honorary degrees from Monmouth University and the American University in Paris.
Sari Hanafi
Bio
Sari Hanafi is currently a Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut and editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic) and Chair of Islamic Studies program. He is the President of the International Sociological Association (2018-2022) and previously its Vice President and member of its Excitative Committee (2010-2018). Recently he created the “Portal for Social impact of scientific research in/on the Arab World” (Athar). He was the Vice President of the board of the Arab Council of Social Science (2015-2016). He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-Paris (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) (1994). He has also served as a visiting professor/fellow at the University of Poitiers and Migrintern and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (France), University of Bologna and Ravenna (Italy), Chr. Michelsen Institute (Bergen-Norway), Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
Hanafi was also a former senior researcher at the Cairo-based French research center, Centre d’études et de documentation économique juridique et sociale (1994-2000). He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on the sociology of religion, sociology of (forced) migration; politics of scientific research; civil society, elite formation and transitional justice. Among his recent books are: Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise. (with R. Arvanitis) (in Arabic, Beirut:CAUS and in English, Routledge -2016); From Relief and Works to Human Development: UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees after 60 Years. (Edited with L Takkenberg and L Hilal) (Routledge- 2014). The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in The Occupied Palestinian Territories (Edited with A. Ophir & M. Givoni, 2009) (English and Arabic) (NY:Zone Book; Beirut:CAUS), The Emergence of A Palestinian Globalized Elite: Donors, International Organizations and Local NGOs (with L. Taber, 2005) (Arabic and English); Pouvoir et associations dans le monde arabe (Edited with S. Bennéfissa, 2002) (Paris:CNRS). He is the winner of 2014 Abdelhamid Shouman Award and 2015 Kuwait Award for social science. In 2019, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) of the National University of San Marcos (the first and the leading university in Lima- Peru – established in 1551). (His website: https://sites.aub.edu.lb/sarihanafi/)
Hala Wertani
Bio
Doctor in Arabic Language, Literature and Civilization. Researcher in Arabic and Islamic civilization. In charge of the Tunisian Open Encyclopedia in the Tunisian academy of sciences letters and arts Beit al hikma. Assistant Professor Faculty of letters and humanities Manouba.Member of Tunisian research laboratory and Search unit (in reading the religious discourse. (Have published many researches (books and articles in scientific journals).
Nader Hashemi
Bio
Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (Melville House, 2011), The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013) and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is frequently interviewed by PBS, NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera, Pacifica Radio and the BBC and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera Online, CNN.com among other media outlets.