Bernard Lewis is Still Kicking It

One often forgets that Bernard Lewis still has hand in the academic cookie jar. Even though the previous administration called upon his ideas and his personage, and with fan boys such as Reuel Gerecht tout his intellectual legacy, I often presume that Lewis is no longer a mover and shaker in academia. To your right, you will see a link for the Harvard Middle East Strategy Blog (MESH). By academic and popular standards, it shares a predominantly conservative line of thinking on the Middle East. (Every once in a while a post breaks from that pattern.) Which is why I wasn't too surprised to see an entry for WINEP book prizes or one celebrating the second meeting of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA)--aka Lewis's MESA counter organization.

With the rise of Edward Said and a host of political economists, social historians, and cultural historians, Lewis's intellectual hegemony slipped from his grasp over the study of Middle Eastern studies. Historians bandy around Lewis's name and his philological approach as a synonym for antiquated methodologies or assumptions on life in the Middle East. Along with his sidekick Fouad Ajami, Lewis formed ASMEA to "to defend free inquiry, expand the boundaries of scholarship, and respond to the growing need for a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to studying the cultures, histories, and issues of the Middle East and Africa," according to the MESH post. ASMEA exists to preserve a tarnished academic legacy and further similar lines of study by empowering academics who need funding, publication, and conferencing. And who can blame them? Why not head up to your next ASMEA meeting to hear Bernie Lewis and cool, dispassionate luminaries such as John Bolton. At the very least, the ASMEA website pointed me to a review of Jon Kraus' Trade Unions and the Coming of Democracy in Africa.