Understanding Conflict – Research, Ideas and Responses to Security Threats

12.00, Monday 08, June 2015 – 19.00, Thursday 11, June 2015

The Understanding Conflict conference seeks to address important questions about conflict in the contemporary world and interrogate the role of research and advocacy in understanding and responding to it.

The conference is organised around five major themes:

• Expertise and knowledge about terrorism
• Islamophobia, racism and the counterjihad
• Conflict, terrorism and governance
• Propaganda to Twitter revolutions: How should we think about organised persuasive communication?
• Researching conflict: Ethics, funding and research partnerships from Camelot to Minerva and beyond

Keynote speakers include:

• Professor Gilbert Achcar (School of Oriental and African Studies) on Conflict, Terrorism and Governance
• Dr Ruth Blakeley (University of Kent) on Rendition
• Max Blumenthal (Author Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel)
• Professor John Esposito (Georgetown University) on Islamophobia
• Dr Mark Hayes (Southampton Solent) on Academia and the Security State in Britain: Liverpool University – A Case Study in Collusion
• Professor Jenny Hocking (Monash University) on Counter- terrorism
• Dr Nisha Kapoor (University of York) on ‘Race’ and Citizenship in the Context of the ‘War on Terror’
• Professor Deepa Kumar (Rutgers University) on Mediating Racism: The New McCarthyites and the Matrix of Islamophobia
• Professor Arun Kundnani (New York University) on The War on Terror and the University: Racism, Empire, and Surveillance
• Norman Finkelstein (author Method and Madness: the hidden story behind Israel’s assault on Gaza) on Whither the “peace process”?
• Professor Jeremy Keenan (School of Oriental and African Studies) on State terrorism and state accountability in the transformation of “terrorism” in the Sahara during the GWOT
• Professor David Price (St. Martin’s University) on Questioning Our agency Inside Agencies: Rethinking the Possibility of Scholars’ Critical Contributions to Security Agencies
• Marc Sageman, M.D, Ph.D (former CIA Operations Officer; Sageman Consulting LLC) on How to think about terrorism? A historiography
• Professor Jeff Goodwin (New York University) on Problems in the Study of State Terrorism: The Question of Intent
• Dr Salman Sayyid (University of Leeds) on Democracy and Diversity and the Politics of De-Radicalisation
• Professor Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden) on Propaganda
• Professor Christopher Simpson (American University) on Propaganda, Ritual and Structural Violence

To view the full programme for this event please visit the University of Bath website.