2008 Edward Said Memorial Lecture

Doctor Sara Roy, Harvard University  

"The Impossible Union of Arab and Jew: Reflections on Dissent, Remembrance and Redemption"

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Date: Saturday 11th of October 2008 

Venue: Lecture Theatre 102, Napier Building, North Terrace Campus

Time: 5:00pm

Tickets $10 pre-purchased - Click Here

$15 at the door

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Doctor Sara Roy's Biography

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University where she completed her doctoral studies in international development. Trained as a political economist, Dr Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades. Her current research, which was funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examines the social and economic sectors of the Palestinian Islamic movement and their relationship to Islamic political institutions, and the critical changes to the Islamic movement that have occurred over the last decade. Her primary findings point to a restructuring and de-radicalization of the Islamist movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to the start of the second Palestinian uprising.

Dr Roy is the author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001), now in its second edition with a third edition forthcoming; The Gaza Strip Survey (1986); and editor of The Economics of Middle East Peace: A Reassessment (1999). Her most recent book is Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2007) and she is completing Between Extremism and Civism: Political Islam in Palestine (Princeton University Press, manuscript in progress). Dr Roy also has authored over 100 publications dealing with Palestinian issues and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Current History, Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, International Journal of Middle East Studies, The Beirut Review, American Political Science Review, Critique, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago Journal of International Law, Index on Censorship, La Vanguardia, Le Monde Diplomatique and the London Review of Books.

Dr Roy also serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Near East Relief Agency (ANERA), an American private voluntary organization working in the Middle East, and the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University. She also sits on the Board of Directors of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program - U.S. branch. In addition to her academic work, she has served as a consultant to international organizations, the U.S. government, human rights organizations, private voluntary organizations, and private business groups working in the Middle East.

The lecture is proudly sponsored by the Australian Friends of Palestine Association.