Webinar “The Present and the Future of Islamism”

Date of publication: November 21, 2020

Prague Centre for Middle East Relations (PCMR) of CEVRO Institute organized a webinar “The Present and the Future of Islamism.” The event was held online on Wednesday, November 11, 2020. Our distinguished guests were:

• Gilles Kepel, Professor at Paris Sciences and Lettres University (PSL).
• Marek Čejka, Associate professor and lecturer at the Mendel University in Brno, Department of Territorial Studies.

The session covered the state of Islamism in the region in the light of recent developments and in the Middle East in the post-Arab Spring and the post-ISIS period and possible future developments and their implications for Europe. The also assessed the impact of the varying Islamism discourses in Francophone and English-language debates on the Czech discussions.

The event was organized in cooperation with the FORUM 2000.

The webinar was moderated by Tomáš Kaválek, Director of PCMR.

Gilles Kepel is a French political scientist and Arabist, who specializes in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. Mr. Kepel is a Professor at Paris Sciences and Lettres University (PSL) as well as chair of the Middle East and Mediterranean Program at Ecole Normale Supérieure, and director of the Middle Eastern Mediterranean Freethinking Platform at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. He is the author of many widely acclaimed books, including, most recently translated into English, Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West (2017) and the latest one Away from Chaos: the Middle East and the Challenge to the West (Columbia University Press, 2020), which was reviewed by The New York Times as “an excellent primer for anyone wanting to get up to speed on the region”. 

Marek Čejka focuses on the Middle East, relation between religion and politics, international law, religious radicalism and terrorism. Currently he is an associate professor and lecturer at the Mendel University in Brno, Department of Territorial Studies. In 2001–02 he was fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and in 2013–14 he was Fulbright Fellow in Hartford Seminary, USA. His books include Judaism and Politics in Israel (2002, 2009), Israel and Palestine (2005, 2007), Encyclopedia of the Middle Eastern Terrorism (2007), Rabbis of our Time (2016 published by Routledge, co-author with R. Kořan), Quran, Sword and Ballots – Sources and Forms of Islamism (2020). Marek Čejka runs a blog about the Middle East, available here.