As we make the final preparations for the POMEPS Annual Conference this Friday and Saturday, we’re reflecting on all of the outstanding research being carried out by POMEPS community members. When looking over the list of conference participants we’re delighted to have such an accomplished group of scholars coming together. For example, we’re pleased to have Carrie Rosefsky Wickham joining as a discussant. Last year Wickham published The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Princeton University Press), which was named one of The Middle East Channel’s best books of 2013. In The Muslim Brotherhood, Wickham traces the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from its founding to its electoral success in 2011 and 2012 following the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak. Wickham draws on more than a hundred interviews and utilizes Arabic language resources not previously seen by Western researchers to provide “a systematic, fine-grained account of Islamist group evolution in Egypt and the wider Arab world.”
Wickham, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, also joined POMEPS for the “Rethinking Islamist Politics” conference in January (you can read her memo here and in POMEPS Studies 24). She returned in February for a book launch for The Muslim Brotherhood. Wickham discussed the book in POMEPS Conversations 24 with POMEPS Director Marc Lynch (who also reviewed the The Muslim Brotherhood in Democracy). — C.K.