Unveiling of the Investcorp Building

From left: Nada and Nemir Kirdar (the Benefactor), Dame Zaha Hadid (the Architect),
HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser of Qatar (the Keynote Speaker)
and Professor  Eugene Rogan (the Director of the Middle East Centre)

On Tuesday 26 May, the Oxford University building created by Zaha Hadid was unveiled and named the Investcorp Building. The £11 million building was commissioned by St Antony’s College to provide much-needed space for its Middle East Centre. The Investcorp Building spans two Victorian buildings on Woodstock Road in the grounds of the college. Read more here

See images of the building here

See photos from the ceremony here

TV: Newsnight, BBC Two 27/05/2015, 22.30

One of the world’s top architects, Dame Zaha Hadid, is interviewed at St Antony’s College about the unveiling of the new building she has designed for the Middle East Centre. Interviewer Evan Davis describes it as ‘a gleaming new arrival…certainly eye-catching with the usual curvaceous form associated with Zaha Hadid, who also designed the Aquatics Centre of London 2012 Olympics. It is inescapably not trying to be conventional, rather like Zaha Hadid herself’. There are musical sequences over panning shots of the exterior and interior of the building.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05wxx88/newsnight-26052015
(around 33:42 on the clock)


The Guardian online, 26/05/2015, Ian Black
Article focuses on the keynote speech, at the opening of the new Investcorp building at St Antony’s College, given by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, ‘one of the most influential and high-profile women in the Arab world’.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/26/qatar-emirs-mother-speaks-out-over-treatment-of-muslims-by-west

Mail Online, 26/05/2015, via Reuters
Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born architect, has designed a futuristic addition to Oxford University: a curvy bridge building for St Antony's College's Middle East Centre that was inaugurated on Tuesday. The 1,127-square-metre structure, which connects two existing Victorian premises, will house the centre's archive, library and 118-seat lecture theatre. The £11 million ($17 million) cost has been covered by Investcorp, an investment company which will give its name to the building and was founded in 1982 by Iraqi-born financier Nemir Kirdar.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3097814/Oxford-University-unveils-new-Hadid-designed-Middle-East-wing.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

What's that? Roaring debate over Hadid's 'ear trumpet'
The Independent, 27/05/2015, p.6, Jay Merrick
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/zaha-hadids-modernist-library-inspires-shock-and-awe-in-oxford-10277247.html


Muslims 'dehumanised' says Qatar royal
BBC News online, 26/05/2015, Sean Coughlan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32887820


Oxford University unveils new Hadid-designed Middle East wing
Economic Times (India), 26/05/2015, via Reuters
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/oxford-university-unveils-new-hadid-designed-middle-east-wing/articleshow/47435204.cms


Oxford University unveils new Hadid-designed Middle East wing
Channel NewsAsia, 26/05/2015, via Reuters
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/entertainment/oxford-university-unveils/1873690.html

Middle East Centre building revealed

Oxford Mail, p.3, 27/05/2015

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/12972693.Middle_East_Centre_building_revealed/http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/12972693.Middle_East_Centre_building_revealed/

Lecture 19 May 2015

Title: Muslim Democrats after Charlie

Speaker: Professor Tariq Ramadan ( Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, St Antony's College)

Convenor: Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis (St Antony's College)

Discussant: Dr Faisal Devji (Director of the Asian Studies Centre, St Antony’s College); Professor Eugene Rogan (Director of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College)

Watch the video podcast here

See the poster here 

A conversation around the publication of "Muslim Democrats of the World, Unite!” by Ghaleb Bencheikh, President of the World Conference for Religions for Peace, Anwar Ibrahim, former vice Prime Minister of Malaysia, head of the national opposition and chairman of the World Forum for Muslim Democrats. Felix Marquardt, founder of the Abd al-Raḥman al-Kawakibi Foundation and of the Khlass (Enough with) the silence! Movement, and Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, Oxford University.

Seminar 15 May 2015

Title: How an atheist article brought about the third Arab-Israeli war: Syria and the 1967 May-June crisis in the Middle East    

Speaker: Dr Guy Laron (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Academic Visitor at St Antony's)

Chair: Dr Eugene Rogan (Director of the Middle East Centre, St Antony's College)

See poster here

See photos from the event here
Read about the speaker here

Abstract:

Syria’s claim in early May 1967 that Israel was about to attack it was one of the reasons that Egypt mobilized its troops, a decision which had initiated a wave of counter-mobilizations and started the slide toward the June 1967 war. On a more fundamental level, Syria was also the reason that the Arab-Israeli conflict was heating up in the mid-1960s. Since 1963, its Baath regime hosted and supported Palestinian guerrilla organizations, retaliated forcefully against any Israeli attempt to till fields in the demilitarized zones, and tried to divert the tributaries of the Jordan River, one of Israel's main sources of water. On the face of it, Syrian moves made little sense. Syria was too weak to confront Israel. Why would it court military disaster? The explanation lies in the conflict between officers from impoverished background with socialist leanings and the affluent commercial and land owning elite.