Few countries have had as vexed a political history as Syria. Carved out of the Ottoman empire at the end of the First World War, Syria was then brutally ruled by France. This French ‘mandate’ carved out new borders with equally provisional neighbours in a process that pulled apart families, trade networks and political assumptions that had already been ravaged by the war.

In this talk, I explore how Saudi legal thought is shaping the ways in which Islamic law is applied by Islamic courts beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Since the 1960s, Saudi Arabia has made significant efforts to promote a distinct Saudi understanding of Islam globally, mainly through international students at Saudi universities such as the Islamic University of Medina.

'Twelve Years Away from Constantinople' was an instant classic in its time. For well over a century, it has endured as a uniquely candid and entertaining account of Armenian émigré life during the reign of the authoritarian Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid II. Best known for his trenchant satires, its extraordinarily cosmopolitan author, Yervant Odian, was and remains one of the most recognizable and active figures of his generation.

Amjad M. Tadros is an award-winning investigative journalist and media entrepreneur with more than three decades of leadership in journalism, digital media, and communications. As CBS News' Middle East producer from 1990 to 2023, he managed regional coverage of transformative events, including Iraq's wars, the 9/11 hijackers' backstories, the Arab Spring, and Syria's chemical attacks on civilians earning him major international awards. In 2013, Tadros co-founded Syria Direct, an independent media organization empowering young Syrians to deliver impartial news about their country's conflict.

Omer Bartov is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University and the author of many books, including Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, which won the National Jewish Book Award; Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past; and Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel–Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis.

We are excited to announce the call for papers for the 2026 Oxford Graduate Conference in Political Theory.

We welcome submissions from students pursuing graduate degrees in any department and working in any area of political theory—including but not limited to critical theory, analytic political philosophy, and the history of political thought. We especially encourage students from other institutions to submit their work for consideration, and we also accept applications from current students at Oxford.