Knowledge Bank

Dale Eickelman is best known for his ethnographic field research in the Middle East, and he is the author of several books, including The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed. (Prentice Hall, 2002), Knowledge and Power in Morocco (Princeton University Press, 1985), and Muslim Politics, co-authored with James Piscatori (Princeton University Press, 1996). Eickelman is former president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and recently completed a two-year Euro-American postdoctoral field-building project, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), called "Public Spheres and Muslim Identities." Eickelman is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden.

Jillian Schwedler is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland at College Park. She received her PhD in Politics from New York University in September 2000. Dr. Schwedler's publications include three edited volumes, Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, 2nd ed., with Deborah J. Gerner (Lynne Rienner, 2003), Toward Civil Society in the Middle East? A Primer (Lynne Rienner, 1995), which she edited and for which she contributed the key article, and Islamist Movements in Jordan (Amman, 1997). Her articles have appeared in Journal of Democracy, Comparative Politics, Social Movement Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies, Middle East Report, and elsewhere, as well as in several edited volumes. Her book manuscript, Faith in Moderation: The Dynamics of Islamist Political Parties, is currently under review.

Richard K. Herrmann is professor of political science and Director of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University. He has written widely on politics in the Middle East, international security, and American foreign policy. From 1989 to 1991, Herrmann served on Secretary of State James Baker’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and from 1991-1996, he served as coeditor of International Studies Quarterly, the flagship journal of the International Studies Association. Herrmann has been a frequent visitor to the Middle East, lecturing and conducting research in Israel and the West Bank, as well as in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. In 1996-97 he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations of New York task force that produced the book Differentiated Containment: Rethinking U.S. Policy in the Gulf.