Annual Report 2010 | 2011 - Columbia Global Centers

on creating partnerships and fundraising relationships, and the experience of the Amman Center.
On March 23, a discussion on the Global Centers was held at Boğaziçi University, with welcoming remarks by its
President, Kadri Ozcalidiran. Following opening remarks by President Lee Bollinger, a panel discussion, “How Do
We Teach Our History? Comparative Issues and Perspectives” ensued. Panelists included: Fikret Adanır, Professor at
Sabancı University, Elazar Barkan, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Director of the Institute for
the Study of Human Rights and SIPA Human Rights Concentration at Columbia University, and Edhem Eldem,
Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Boğaziçi University. The discussion was moderated by Karen
Barkey, Professor of Sociology and History and Chair of the Faculty Steering Committee for the Columbia Global
Centers | Turkey.
A second panel discussion entitled, “The Role of Policy Centers (Think Tanks) on Policy Making”, was moderated
by Kenneth Prewitt, Vice President for Global Centers and Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia
University. Panelists included: Hakan Altınay, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Lee Goldman, Executive
Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at
Columbia University, and Kemal Kirişci, Professor of Political Science at Boğaziçi University.
Workshop on Religious Law, Local Practice, and Global Debates
about Muslim Women’s Rights
“Who’s Afraid of Shari’a Law?” is a project spearheaded by Lila Abu-Lughod, the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of
Social Science at Columbia University and Co-Director of the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference
(CCASD), which seeks ways to move beyond the polarized debates about women’s rights in Muslim societies. In
the past two decades, the application of Islamic law to the regulation of women’s everyday lives has generated great
controversy, but has also inspired innovative thinking by feminists.
As part of this project, and in collaboration with Professor Abu-Lughod and CCASD, the Columbia University
Middle East Research Center hosted a workshop on April 8-10 that focused on women’s rights, family law, and
the topic of “consent”—its meanings, its potential, and its politics. The workshop brought together a group of
international scholars and practitioners who work in the fields of law and legal reform across the Muslim world,
including Iran, Egypt, Palestine, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Senegal, and Morocco. The workshop helped enable the
development of a more nuanced assessment of the place of Islamic law in today’s world, and is the first in a series
of intensive workshops that will be held on this topic.
Professor Lila Abu-Lughod convenes a workshop on religious law