Search results

AbstractThese concluding reflections assess how the contributors to this special issue intervene in key assumptions that shape the current field of archival studies. As the "archival turn" gains ground, forms of Euro- and state-centrism reappear in scholarship otherwise innovative in its attention to the textual remnants of the past. Here, instead, we explore the methodological stakes involved in defining both the "archive" and the historical power brokers who created and preserved a documentary record in pursuit of their varied social, cultural, economic, and political projects. The essay points to the resurgence of culturalist and civilisational indices for comparative archivistics, and follows the arguments collected in this issue to assert by contrast the often uneven and uneasy regional, administrative, and procedural definitions at work within preserved records. Identifying "mobility" as both a methodological tactic and a historical process, this conclusion presents a fluid rather than fixed textual landscape and presents an alternative frame for investigating preservationist practices.

MESA's Board of Directors established the MESA Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee (hereafter ASH) to help create a safe environment at the MESA annual meeting and in the wider Middle East studies community. Its goal is to strengthen the MESA community by building mutual trust and by providing resources to sexual harassment survivors. MESA is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to complying with all federal, state, and local EEO laws during the annual meeting and thereafter.

Once again, this issue of the Review circulates as turbulent events continue to displace and fracture the history, culture, and everyday realities that define the MENA region and diasporic lives. As MESA members seek ways to interrogate and intervene in these chaotic moments through academic and pedagogical practice, our hope is that the RoMES mission to bridge divides between fields, publics, and geographies in Middle East studies will provide potential pathways forward. We also face ongoing public debate concerning the role of academics and of liberal arts education during a time when conscientious, critical scholarship and curricula are often labeled as partisan projects. It is thus incumbent on all of us to reassess the roles we play in the various fora that define our lives: classrooms, conferences, public media outlets, scholarly publications, editorial and institutional boards, think tanks, and beyond. In this issue we introduce three new sections of the Review intentionally created to capture some of these varied roles and thus to offer RoMES as a space for interrogation and reflection.

I joined the Review of Middle East Studies' editorial team in a disquieting time—one in which the world we study and inhabit is engulfed by political upheavals with traumatic human, material, and environmental consequences. Although every age has its crises, it is hard not to feel that we are in a moment of critical import for the future of domestic and global relations, as nation-states once again seek to assert and extend power through increasingly xenophobic means. How grateful, then, I have been that Richard Martin's brilliant stewardship and Ashleigh Breske's managerial acumen guided RoMES into a position primed to address our role as an academic community dedicated both to the MENA region and to the global dimensions of scholarship. Rich and Ashleigh planned and steered this Issue of RoMES through the editorial process, and generously offered their time and insight while waiting for me to assume the duties of Editor and transition the office to Claremont McKenna College. We are indebted to Rich for re-mapping the vision of RoMES while presumably retired, tirelessly working through a backlog of submissions, commuting to Virginia Tech after convincing the institution to house and support the Review, and for generally embodying a spirit of dedicated service to the field we can only hope to approximate. His willingness to walk me through the intricacies of the Review process while also navigating a cross-country move further illustrates a generosity of spirit that I hope will continue to suffuse RoMES in the future. Rich and Ashleigh together also streamlined the production process, and along with the team at Cambridge University Press, I look forward to building on their efforts and maintaining RoMES as a vibrant and consistent voice in an increasingly volatile climate.