In an effort to highlight the diverse range of scholarship at the upcoming annual meeting, we’re highlighting different sessions here on the blog each week.

This roundtable panel discusses the state of the field of U.S-Arab historiography, a burgeoning field of inquiry that has long intersected with U.S. cultural, diplomatic and military involvement and interventions in the Middle East.  The panelists, Salim Yaqub, Matthew Jacobs, Nathan Citino, Robert Vitalis and Ussama Makdisi will discuss how U.S. relations with the Middle East, and the Arab world in particular, have changed over time, what are the pressing issues of the state of the field of U.S.- Arab relations, and where they see the field developing in the years ahead.  An appreciation of the rich history of the U.S. relationship to the Arab world, and the different manners in which this relationship has been studied, can illuminate the variety, and apparently contradictory nature, of U.S. responses to the revolutions and political crises in the Arab world.

– Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History, Rice University

The State of the Field of U.S.- Arab Relations: A Roundtable
(AHA Session 162)

Date: Saturday, January 5, 2012, 9:00 a.m.- 11:00 a.m.
Location: Conti Room (Roosevelt New Orleans)
Chair: Ussama S. Makdisi, Rice University

Topics:
American Global Power in Regional Perspective: U.S.-Arab Relations as Twentieth Century History
Nathan J. Citino, Colorado State University–Fort Collins
Beyond Oil: The Meaning of U.S. Interests in the Middle East
Robert Vitalis, University of Pennsylvania
Arabs Я Us: U.S.-Arab Interactions and the Shaping of American Identity
Salim Yaqub, University of California, Santa Barbara
Re-thinking U.S.-Arab Relations in Light of the Arab Spring
Matthew Jacobs, University of Florida

Session Abstract
This roundtable panel discusses the state of the field of U.S-Arab Historiography, a burgeoning field of inquiry that has long intersected with U.S. cultural, diplomatic and military involvement and interventions in the Middle East.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.