Agenda

CA’ FOSCARI INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE SPECIAL ON...

Prof. Eric DAVIS (Rutgers University, New Jersey - USA)

Biography: 
Dr. Davis is a Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and past director of the University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His research has included the study of the relationship between state power and historical memory in modern Iraq, the political economy of Egyptian industrialization, the ideology and social bases of religious radical movements in Egypt and Israel, and the impact of oil wealth on the state and culture in Arab oil-producing countries. Dr. Davis has been appointed a fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin; the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University; the Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University; and the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.Dr. Davis has been appointed a Carnegie Scholar for 2007-2008 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to conduct research for a project entitled, "Islam and the Formation of Political Identities in Post-Bacthist Iraq: Implications for a Democratic Transition." He also holds a fellowship from the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TAARII) and a grant from the United States Institute of Peace for 2008-2009 to study the relationship between sectarian identities and civil society building in Iraq. Dr. Davis is a member of an eight nation study, "Democracy and Development in the Arab World," being conducted under the auspices of the World Bank and the American University in Beirut.His publications include “Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq” (California, 2005); “Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920-1941” (Princeton, 1983) (Arabic translation: Institute for Arab Development, 1986); and “Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory and Popular Culture” (with Nicolas Gavrielides, Florida, 1991). He is currently finishing a book on Post-Bacthist Iraq, “Taking Democracy Seriously in Iraq”, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press. Dr. Davis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. (http://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/davis/bio.html)