Description
The modern nation state plays a powerful role in shaping how we define ourselves—but as global challenges shift ideas of culture, citizenship and belonging, its future is being reimagined.
Join Doha Debates for a town hall that brings together three influential thinkers to explore what national identity means today. Wael Hallaq, a scholar of Islamic law and a leading critic of modern state structures, examines identity beyond territorial boundaries. Indian parliamentarian and author Shashi Tharoor offers insight into nationalism and postcolonial identity. Historian David Engels brings a European perspective on tradition and cultural continuity.
Moderated by journalist Malika Bilal, this debate will unfold live on stage with students and recent graduates.
Please note this event will be filmed and recorded live for Doha Debates, at points this may obstruct your view for a short time.
This event will be filmed live. By attending the event, you grant the Doha Debates, and those acting under its authority, the right to film or photograph your attendance and activities at the event and use such footage or photographs, including your appearance therein, in the programme of the event and to directly or indirectly publicise and promote the program and/or any other programme or event produced by or on behalf of Doha Debates in all media now known or hereafter discovered, worldwide and on the Internet, in perpetuity, without notice, review, approval or compensation.
If you would not like to be filmed during the event please let our team know on arrival and you will be given a yellow lanyard.
About the Speakers
Dr David Engels
David Engels was Professor and Chair of Roman History at the University of Brussels (ULB) and currently works as free writer and lecturer for world history at the ICES University in France. He is the author and editor of numerous scholarly books and papers on ancient history, the philosophy of history and modern conservatism. He is chiefly known through his study Le déclin, where he compared the current crisis of the West to the decline and fall of the Roman Republic in the 1st c. B.C., and through his books Renovatio Europae, Que faire? and Défendre l’Europe, all available in numerous translations. Engels has also published a thousand articles on culture and politics in the broader European media, comprising a cooking column with his prefered recipes.
Dr Shashi Tharoor
Dr Shashi Tharoor is an author, politician, and former international civil servant, who straddles several worlds of experience. Currently a fourth-term parliament member of Lok Sabha, representing the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala, India, he previously served as India’s Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs.
During his nearly three-decade-long prior career at the United Nations, he served as a peacekeeper, refugee worker, and administrator at the highest levels, serving as under-secretary-general during Kofi Annan’s leadership of the organization.
Tharoor is the bestselling author of 27 books, both fiction and nonfiction, and the winner of several literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Sahitya Akademi Award, and Crossword Book’s Lifetime Achievement award.
Dr Wael Hallaq
Wael B. Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he has been teaching ethics, law, and intellectual history since 2009.
He has written more than eighty scholarly articles and over a dozen books, treating logic, legal history, the modern state, and moral philosophy, within an overarching intellectual project concerned with the critique of modernity. Hallaq’s work has won many distinguished awards and is widely debated around the world, with books, dissertations, and articles devoted to the study and analysis of his writings. His life and work have been featured in many symposia, talk shows, and documentaries by major media outlets. Most of his books and articles have been translated into multiple languages, including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Arabic, Albanian, Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, Urdu, Russian, and Bengali.
About the Moderator
Malika Bilal
Malika Bilal is an award-winning international journalist who splits her time between Los Angeles, CA and Washington, DC. She hosts The Take, Al Jazeera English’s flagship daily news vodcast, where her intimate interviews with newsmakers around the world have twice earned her the Gracie Award for Best Podcast News Host. Prior to The Take, she spent eight years co-hosting the Emmy-nominated TV news talk show, The Stream, broadcast to more than 310 million households in more than 140 countries. A Chicago native, Malika studied at the American University in Cairo and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She previously worked for Voice of America, has written for the Chicago Tribune, NPR and ESPN, and has hosted documentaries for PBS Digital and Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines. Malika’s reporting has taken her across the US and the Middle East, and she’s interviewed guests spanning the political and entertainment spectrum: from the late President Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama, to Lupita Nyong’o and Trevor Noah. Her favorite interviews, though, are with the people you haven’t heard of yet.
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