“For International Affairs theorists the post-9/11 forever war was primarily a theoretical and strategic issue whereas for MES scholars it was about seeing their sites of study transform into a permanent war zone.”
The Middle East has long been a site for the exercise of imperial rivalries and hegemonic ambitions, but the totalizing impact of the Global War on Terror launched in the aftermath of 9/11 reshaped the region in a way that previous conflicts did not. Scholars of the Middle East experienced the impact of the events of 9/11 most profoundly because of their direct experiences living in and studying a region that became synonymous with terrorist violence, religious extremism and repression of women and minorities in the minds of many Americans. For International Affairs theorists the post-9/11 forever war was primarily a theoretical and strategic issue whereas for MES scholars it was about seeing their sites of study transform into a permanent war zone. The reverberations of the US ‘forever wars’ reached physically into every corner of the region and loomed intellectually over every exercise of scholarly inquiry. It became impossible to examine even seemingly innocuous topics like cultural heritage preservation without grappling with the impacts of a widespread US military presence and increased support for friendly autocratic regimes that promised cooperation in the GWOT. Middle East studies has always been a site of controversy, but the Islamophobia and xenophobia that metastasized in the wake of 9/11 has left an indelible mark on the trajectory of the discipline and the very nature of the questions we ask ourselves as scholars.