The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights and the Future of the Middle East
Micheline Ishay is a political scientist known for her work in political theory, international relations, human rights, foreign policy, and the Middle East. She is Distinguished Professor of International Studies and Human Rights at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, where she serves as director of the International Human Rights Program. She is an affiliate faculty member with the Center for Middle East Studies, was executive director of the Center on Rights Development, and in 2008 was named University of Denver Distinguished Scholar.
Ishay received a Ph.D. in political science and international studies from Rutgers University. She was a fellow at the Center for Critical Culture and Contemporary Analysis, Rutgers University; assistant professor at Hobart and William Smith College; senior fellow at the Center for Democracy Collaborative, University of Maryland (2004); Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University (2006); and visiting professor, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (2010-2013). She was resident fellow at the Bellagio Center, Rockefeller Foundation, Italy, Fall 2015.
Often interviewed in the international press, Ishay frequently contributes to international forums in Europe and the Middle East and lectures on international issues in the U.S. Her books, The History of Human Rights and The Human Rights Reader have been translated into multiple languages. Her latest book, The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East, was released in August 2019 by Yale University Press. From 2010 to 2013, Ishay worked in the Gulf region from a unique vantage point, as female American scholar in human rights including teaching the first human rights courses in the Arab world just before and throughout the tumultuous events starting in late 2010.
Professor Ishlay’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College and the Siam Family Foundation.