The First Annual Graduate Workshop: ‘New Directions in Studies of the Arab World’
13 – 14 September, 2007 (University of Edinburgh)
The First Annual Graduate CASAW Workshop, 
‘New Directions in Studies of the Arab World’, took place on 13th and 14th September, 2007 at the University of Edinburgh. It was held in close collaboration with the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (IMES). Generous support from CASAW made it possible to offer return rail fares and accommodation to speakers.
Aim
The main purposes of the workshop were: 
first, to explore Arab-related issues in various academic fields; second, to help graduate students to enhance the quality and scope of their research in Arabic and Arab studies, and third, to provide the opportunity to exchange ideas and to socialise with other young researchers across many fields in Arab world studies.
Selection
The response to the call for the papers, which was circulated at the beginning of May, was impressive and the workshop committee received far more proposals for papers than the schedule could accommodate. Papers from any discipline were welcomed and finally sixteen proposals were accepted by the 3-person selection board. 
Workshop
The workshop committee was looking for scholarly papers with a focused argument, coherent analysis, critical evaluation, clear methodology and cogent conclusion to attempt to further our understanding of the Arab world. The selected sixteen speakers from universities all over Britain and one speaker from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain, gathered to discuss their research on diverse topics: sociology, anthropology, religion, translation, literature and politics. This one-and-half-day workshop was chaired by Professor Robert Hillenbrand, director of CASAW, Professor Carole Hillenbrand, head of IMES, and Dr Tony Gorman, lecturer in IMES, to facilitate active interaction and sometimes passionate discussion between the speakers and an audience of postgraduates, academics and new CASAW students.
It was a delight to see the speakers and the audience of young and senior researchers
exchanging their ideas very actively despite the fully packed room throughout the workshop and an audience in which many disciplines were represented whose members had few opportunities to gather in the same room. This diversity across subject fields characterised the workshop, which deliberately avoided parallel sessions in order to stimulate the audience further and to expand its variety of research methods. Mediocre and even negligent research methods are sometimes followed if we become too satisfied and comfortable in our small research area and not to try to broaden our knowledge and challenge our own existing research methods. This workshop was a great success not only because it enabled the speakers from various areas to test their ideas in front of an interested and appreciative audience, but also because it enabled both the speakers and audience to create a sense of camaraderie and to exchange their opinions and experiences in an atmosphere both intellectual and comfortable.
Feedback and outcome
Very positive feedback was given to the speakers from the audience. 
A large majority of those present considered the most beneficial aspect of the workshop was to have had an opportunity to hear a range of papers and thus to encounter disciplines and approaches to research with which they would not otherwise have been acquainted. Prolonged discussion and debate followed by high-level papers were also a feature of this workshop, as well as networking and socialising.
It might be too early to predict the outcome of the workshop, but it is clear that highly active interaction during sessions and breaks, and a comfortable sense of camaraderie created through the workshop stimulated the young researchers’ present. This event, then, will have encouraged further investigation and can improve research methodology so as to reach a deeper understanding of each subject area.
This workshop proved the existence of a marked need and desire to learn more from others both inside and outside one’s own field. It is hoped that this first annual graduate workshop will lead not only to a second graduate workshop but also to many opportunities to challenge and exchange ideas about diverse topics.
DVD and proceedings
The whole workshop was recorded and it is planned to publish the proceedings on the basis of both the papers and the discussion that followed each of them.
Contact
For further enquiries, please contact the workshop committee, via Saeko Yazaki [syazaki@staffmail.ed.ac.uk].
The members of the workshop committee are:
Prof. Robert Hillenbrand (Director of CASAW)
Prof. Carole Hillenbrand (Head of IMES)
Saeko Yazaki (Ph.D. candidate, IMES)
