Interdisciplinarity in World History: Continuity and Change

Ahmed Abushouk · Mahjoob Zweiri

Jun 2016 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

This book represents selected papers of an international conference convened by the Department of Humanities at Qatar University, Doha, in March 2013. Its theme was “Interdisciplinarity in History: An Old Method in New World Context”. Twelve out of the fifty papers presented at the conference have been thoroughly reviewed, revised and compiled in this volume. Their contributions emphasize that interdisciplinary in history has become a key term for professional historians who reject the professional identity of history based on its claimed autonomy and the distinctiveness of its research methods, and argue that this claim has seriously narrowed the intellectual horizons of the discipline in terms of both teaching and research. The chapters also stress that historical research should not be confined to political events as it was by ancient historians, but, rather, be open to other complex issues which require thorough investigation and collaboration between history and other disciplines. In this sense, interdisciplinarity in history is a process of answering questions, solving problems, or examining topics that are too broad or multifaceted to be tackled adequately by history as a discipline on its own. Therefore, history “should not be regarded as a stationary subject,” as Robinson wrote, but as a discipline that would transcend the limitations formerly imposed upon the study of the past, and integrate with other social science disciplines to widen its methodological scope and investigate many issues that had previously ignored or marginalized.

About the author

Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Qatar University, and received his PhD in History from Bergen University, Norway, in 1998. Before joining Qatar University in 2012, he worked at Bergen University (1998–1999) and International Islamic University Malaysia (1999–2012). His latest publications include The Sudan National Elections 2010: A Study of their Preludes and Results (2012) and The Hadrami Diaspora in Southeast Asian: Identity Maintenance or Assimilation? (2009).

Mahjoob Zweiri is an Associate Professor of Contemporary History and Politics of the Middle East and Gradate Faculty at Qatar University, and received his PhD in Modern History of Iran from Tehran University in 2002. Before joining Qatar University, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the Center of Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, as well as a Visiting Professor at the School of Government and International Affairs, and a Research Fellow and Director of the Centre for Iranian Studies at the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Durham, UK. His publications include Iran and Political Dynamism in the Arab World: The Case of Yemen (2015), Iran’s Foreign Policy: From Khatami to Ahmadinejad (2012), and Arabs and Iran: A Review of the History and Politics (2012).