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In a new article for The Conversation, CMES researcher Hossein Hashemi reveals how climate change is reshaping Saharan dust storms and their growing impact on Europe. Read the full article: (External link. The Conversation)Saharan dust storms are a natural phenomenon, often experienced in southern Europe, but climate change is altering their intensity, frequency, and paths, with growing consequenc

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/climate-change-altering-saharan-dust-and-europe-downwind - 2026-05-03

Cowritten by CMES researcher Mo Hamza, this article sheds light on the often-overlooked human work that makes so‑called intelligent machines function. Read the full article here: External link to The Loop.Artificial intelligence is frequently presented as autonomous, efficient and almost frictionless. In The invisible labour behind “intelligent” machines, the authors challenge this narrative by sh

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/invisible-labour-behind-intelligent-machines - 2026-05-03

New article co-written by CMES researcher Torsten Jansson. In the academic article Stirring Up the Ashes: Exhibiting the Great Fire of Smyrna in the Context of Turkish Politics of Memory, the authors examine how one of the most traumatic events in the late Ottoman period continues to shape historical narratives and public memory today. Focusing on museum exhibitions and commemorative practices, th

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/stirring-ashes-exhibiting-great-fire-smyrna-context-turkish-politics-memory - 2026-05-03

Read the director’s message, explore the latest research news, discover upcoming events, and browse our recent publications. Read CMES newsletter here.Spring is slowly transforming the lawns across Lund into brilliant shades of blue as early flowers come into bloom, also around the Forsman Villa, home to researchers at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies.  Another clear sign of the seas

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/read-latest-cmes-newsletter-59 - 2026-05-03

Researchers conducting fieldwork in repressive and illiberal countries face profound ethical, personal and professional challenges — particularly when they are native to the societies they study. These issues were at the centre of a well attended CMES seminar by professor Merouan Mekouar, York University, Canada, that brought together scholars to reflect on risk, responsibility and inequality in a

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/challenges-and-strategies-fieldwork-repressive-and-illiberal-contexts - 2026-05-03

How can the Middle East move towards sustainability and peace amid escalating conflicts and environmental crises? This question was at the heart of a well-attended panel discussion hosted by the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) during Sustainability Week 2026. The event brought together researchers and students from across Lund University to share insights from political science,

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/sustainable-middle-east-turbulent-world - 2026-05-03

New article from CMES by Torsten Janson and Mattias Kärrholm. Read the article here (external link).This article is devoted to analysing the design and symbolics of the Safra Square (Kikar Safra) and City Hall complex, Western Jerusalem. Built around the historic Town Hall of the British Governate, and inaugurated in 1993, the City Hall complex is strategically located along the bustling Jaffa Str

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/squaring-israeli-nation-politics-poetics-and-performances-dominance-safra-square-jerusalem - 2026-05-03

How do Syrians navigate uncertainty and reshape their futures after years of conflict and upheaval? This question was at the heart of the CMES seminar “Worlds in the Making: Viability, Orientation and Recalibration in Syrian Lives,” with Andreas Bandak, University of Copenhagen. The event brought together students, researchers and practitioners to reflect on the shifting realities, challenges, and

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/worlds-making-viability-orientation-and-recalibration-syrian-lives - 2026-05-03

CMES director Ronny Berndtsson at the Division of Water Resources Engineering has cowritten a publication on Salinity–Chloride Interaction Effects on Novel Citrus Combinations Under Various Field Conditions. Read the article here (external link).Citrus production is increasingly constrained worldwide by rising soil salinity, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. In Tunisia, the expansion of

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/salinity-chloride-interaction-effects - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. This book analyses the tensions that emerge within strong welfare states when faced with large migration flows. It also interrogates the phenomenon of the 2015 'refugee crisis' and its foreplay and aftermath in the context of Northern Europe and challenges the notion of crisis as a feature of contemporary realities. "

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-book-refugees-and-violence-welfare-bureaucracies-northern-europe-edited-cmes-dalia-abdelhady-and - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. The rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and North Africa after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has led to a new conceptual category – arguably as political as it is religious – which Rola El-Husseini has previously termed the ‘new Shi’a’. In this formulation, groups not traditionally associated with Twelver Shiism,

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/political-exigency-or-religious-affinity-sectarianism-contemporary-arab-world-new-article-cmes-rola - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. This article compares the discourses of building nations and national identities fostered in the content of school textbooks in the Republic of Turkey—a modern, territorial nation‐state—and the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (hereafter Rojava)—an alternative state system model established in the

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/content-school-textbooks-nation-states-and-stateless-autonomies-comparison-turkey-and-autonomous - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. Middle Eastern research news from Lund University Message from the director The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an exceptionally dynamic area that has undergone great changes politically as well as economically during the latest decades. The region is likely to continue to display rapid and sudden developments

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-8-february-2020 - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. An innovative project has received support from the Swedish Institute under its “support for cooperation with academics from Turkey” scheme. “Turkey Beyond Borders: Critical Voices, New Perspectives” aims to foster collaboration between academics in Sweden and scholars from Turkey whose academic freedoms are implicitl

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/seminar-and-vodcast-series-draws-attention-infringements-academic-freedom-turkey-and-provides-forum - 2026-05-03

New article by CMES researcher Orwa Ajjoub in The Conflict Archives - a platform created to showcase work focused on conflict, insurgency and politics across the globe including the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Central America. The website is a collection of news, articles, insights and analyses supported by in-depth analysis and research of contemporary conflict zones by several researcher

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/orwa-ajjoub-after-baghdadis-death-why-did-islamic-state-fighters-give-pledge-their-new-leader - 2026-05-03

New article by CMES Mohammed Almahfali & James Root in The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies - an independent think-tank that seeks to foster change through knowledge production with a focus on Yemen and the surrounding region. The Center’s publications and programs, offered in both Arabic and English, cover political, social, economic and security related developments, aiming to impact policy l

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/how-irans-islamic-revolution-does-and-does-not-influence-houthi-rule-northern-yemen - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. Having just marked two months since its launch, #rethinkingPopulism has already published 9 articles and an interactive map tracing the topography of research on populism and gender. Continuing to pursue the project’s aim to contribute to a vigorous and constructive, yet widely accessible debate for a non-academic and

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/research-populism-published-cartoons - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. Maria Malmström (Lund) discussed her latest monograph The Streets are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt with Professor Omar Dewachi (from Rutgers). Professor Maria Malmström is Associate Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, where she, in January 2017, started a collab

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/book-talk-graduate-center-city-university-new-york-maria-f-malmstrom - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. 18 March 2020, @ 15:00 CMES, Lund University, Finngatan 16 Please register here: maria.lofstedt@cme.lu.se Speakers:Pınar Dinç, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University“Turkey's Unchanging Raison d'État? Narratives on Dersim 1938”Reyda Ergün, Faculty of Law, Kadir Has University,“Raison d’État and the Regimes

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/panel-discussion-raison-detat-new-turkey-postponed - 2026-05-03

This article is over 5 years old, and the information may therefore be outdated. CMES affiliated fellow, Joshka Wessels, talked about her book “Documenting Syria; Revolution, Filmmaking and Video Activism” recently published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury. Syria is now one of the most important countries in the world for the international documentary film industry. The most recent Syria documentary film

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/documenting-syria-revolution-filmmaking-and-video-activism-full-house-seminar - 2026-05-03