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UID:35394@arabamerica.com
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251121T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251121T180000
DTSTAMP:20251111T184547Z
URL:https://www.arabamerica.com/events/book-talk-master-peace-with-nikolas
 -kosmatopoulos-yasmine-khayyat-2/
SUMMARY:BOOK TALK | Master Peace with Nikolas Kosmatopoulos & Yasmine Khayy
 at
DESCRIPTION:NEW YORK\, NY\n\nLearn how social and structural inequalities i
 n Lebanon are naturalized by the NGOs and think tanks who are supposed to 
 be tackling them.\n\n\n\n\nJoin us for a book talk with author Nikolas Kos
 matopoulos on his latest book\, Master Peace\, which examines the politic
 s of expertise in the application of metropolitan theories of violence and
  practices of peacemaking in post–civil war Lebanon. Through ethnographi
 c encounters\, archival research\, and interviews that shed light on the w
 orlds of academic research\, UN agencies\, NGOs\, and think tanks\, Nikola
 s Kosmatopoulos argues that so-called experts\, from violence researchers 
 to peace professionals\, have often misrepresented and exacerbated the vio
 lence they claim to be tackling\, through their deployment of racialized t
 ropes of conflict and communalizing peace practices.\n\nThe assemblage of 
 these tropes and practices\, which Kosmatopoulos calls “master peace\,
 ” naturalizes social and structural inequalities by collapsing them into
  supposedly innate cultural and sectarian divisions. Master peace installs
  unequal relations of domination through the work of metropolitan theories
 \, as in “ethnic conflict” and “failed state\,” and practices\, su
 ch as conflict resolution workshops and crisis reports\, converting the ra
 dical demand for just peace into a postcolonial regime of dependence on te
 chnocratic tools\, unaccountable experts\, and external donors.\n\nKosmato
 poulos shows how master peace has been framing debates\, designing interve
 ntions of peace and war\, and defining the problem of violence in Lebanon 
 and the Middle East for decades\, to deleterious effect. As the supposed m
 oral high ground that justifies external intervention and precludes politi
 cal solutions or democratic forms of action\, master peace has obscured th
 e geopolitical and ideological nature of violence in the region\, substitu
 ting democratic notions of peace for an elitist antipolitics of expertise 
 characterized by dependence\, domination\, and epistemic violence.\n\n___\
 n\nNikolas Kosmatopoulos is Associate Professor in the Department of Poli
 tical Studies and the Department of Anthropology\, Sociology\, and Media S
 tudies at the American University of Beirut. He is co-founder of the resea
 rch collectives Floating Laboratory of Action and Theory at Sea and Decolo
 nize Hellas. His research and teaching fields of interest include politica
 l anthropology\, policy expertise and global institutions\, and in particu
 lar peacemaking\, statebuilding and crisis resolution in the Middle East\,
  and as of late\, the politics of solidarity and resistance at sea and the
  political economies of ships. His research has been published in Peacebu
 ilding\, Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale\, International Jour
 nal of Middle East Studies\, Public Culture\, Third World Quarterly\, S
 ocial Analysis\, Millenium\, and Anthropology Today\, among others.\n\nY
 asmine Khayyat is Associate Professor of Arabic literature in the Departm
 ent of African\, Middle East\, South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMES
 ALL) at Rutgers University. Her research and teaching interests include co
 ntemporary Arabic literature and poetry\, cultural memory studies\, and hu
 man/animal relationships in Arabic fiction. Her first book War Remains: R
 uination and Resistance in Lebanon was published by Syracuse University P
 ress on May 15\, 2023. It examines the figuration of the ruin as a site of
  resistance and potentiality in modern Lebanese novels\, poetry\, and site
 s of memory. Khayyat has articles published in the Journal of Arabic Lite
 rature\, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies and Critical Inquiry\, a
 mong others.\n\n\n
LOCATION:The People's Forum\, 320 West 37th Street\, New York\, New York\, 
 10018\, United States
GEO:40.754933;-73.994309
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