Joshua Landis

Joshua M. Landis is Associate Professor in the School of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Director of the Center of Middle Eastern Studies. He also serves as a Faculty in Residence Professor for the Walker Center residence hall at the University of Oklahoma.^[1]

Background

He earned his BA from Swarthmore College, MA from Harvard University, and PhD from Princeton University. He's fluent in Arabic and French and has studied Turkish, Italian and Ottoman. He was brought up in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and has lived in various countries of the Middle East, such as Syria, Egypt, and Turkey. In all, he has lived for 14 years in the Middle East. He has received three Fulbright grants and a Social Science Research Council award.

Career

Landis is the webmaster of Syria Comment, which is a blog about Syrian politics, history, and religion. It has been published since May 2004. Dr. Landis regularly travels to Washington DC to consult with government agencies. In 2008, he received the Outstanding Teaching Award at his university.

He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio. Most recently he has appeared on PBS News Hour, Charlie Rose Show,^[2] CNN, Fox News, and has been widely quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, and comments frequently for NPR and BBC radio. He has spoken at the Brookings Institute, USIP, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations.^{[citation needed]}

Landis' recent news appearances can be found here.

He taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Wake Forest University, and Princeton University before moving to the University of Oklahoma

Criticism

Landis has been noted for his friendly relationship to the Ambassador of Syria, Imad Moustapha, but when Landis wrote during the first weeks of the Syrian uprising of 2011 that there was "no soft landing"^[3] for the Syria regime and that it was "deeply sectarian",^[4] Ambassador Moustapha cut off further contact with him on the grounds that he was a "revolutionary."

References

External links

• Joshua M Landis at the University of Oklahoma
• Syria Comment

Articles written by Joshua Landis:

• ""The Battle between ISIS and Syrias Rebel Militias,"" (January 4, 2014) in Syrian Comment
• "“The Syrian Uprising of 2011: Why the Assad Regime is Likely to Survive to 2013,”" (February 2012) in Middle East Policy Vol. XIX, No. 1 (2012).
• "Shishakli and the Druzes: Integration and Intransigence," in The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998: 369-396
• Syria and the 1948 War in Palestine A shorter version of this article was published as “Syria in the 1948 Palestine War: Fighting King Abdullah’s Greater Syria Plan,” in Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds., Rewriting the Palestine War: 1948 and the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 178–205. (Translated into French, Spanish and Arabic)
• "Early U.S. Policy toward Palestinian Refugees: the Syria Option," in The Palestinian Regugees: Old Problems - New Solutions, eds. Joseph Ginat and Edward J. Perkins, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman OK, 2001, pp. 77–87.
• Islamic Education In Syria: Undoing Secularism in Eleanor Doumato and Gregory Starrett, Eds., Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, London & Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, pp. 177–196.
• "The Syrian Opposition,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 30, pp. 45–68. 2007. (written with Joe Pace)
• "The Syrian Opposition: The struggle for unity and relevance, 2003–2008," in Fred Lawson, ed., Demystifying Syria, Saqi Books, 2009, pp. 120–143. (written with Joe Pace)
• "Will failure to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict mean a new Cold War in the Middle East?" Foreign Policy - Middle East Channel, Tuesday, May 11, 2010
• "The U.S.-Syria Relationship: A Few Questions," Middle East Policy, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2010, pp. 64–73.