NYUAD Institute

2017.04.11 In the 4th century BCE, Diogenes of Sinope claimed that the whole world was his hometown. Since then, that idea has influenced hundreds of generations of people including figures as diverse as Rumi in 13th century Persia, and Montaigne in 16th century France. Surely Diogenes’ claim was ahead of its time, since up to quite recently, the large majority of people didn’t know about or have...

2017.04.06 In 2016, American literary magazine The Common published a special issue devoted to contemporary Arabic fiction. Co-edited by the journal's editor-in-chief Jennifer Acker and prominent Jordanian writer Hisham Bustani, the issue was the result of four years of collaboration that began in Abu Dhabi. Today, award-winning Egyptian writer Youssef Rakha, who contributed an introduction to the...

2017.04.04 An efficient and productive aviation sector can be a strong driver of economic growth. In order to support the development of the sector, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) is committed to cultivating a culture of innovation. This will lead to economic expansion and the reduction of environmental risks in the air transportation services industry. This lecture explores how t...

2017.03.29 The Falcon Genome Project commenced in 2010 and resulted in de novo genome assemblies for the peregrine and saker falcons in 2013, which have been used to understand avian evolution, demography and evolutionary adaptation. The two reference genomes have been the basis for further exploration into adaptation in saker falcons across their geographic range in Eurasia, resulting in some sur...

2017.03.27 Since the 1920s the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has promoted the formal interpretation of Islam in the Kingdom, commonly referred to as Salafism or Wahhabism, through its missionary efforts abroad. However, Salafism is also the religious doctrine to which many Sunni militants subscribe. As a result, some political pundits and the media have frequently linked Saudi Arabia's missionary activi...

2017.03.15 Universities are proliferating around the world to meet the growing demand for graduates equipped with work-ready skills, and for research that produces innovative approaches to human security. But what kind of study and inquiry actually serves those purposes? Is the rush to address today’s problems leaving us ill-prepared for tomorrow’s tasks? In fact, what happens when students are ex...

2017.03.12 The Arab world’s experience over the last two years has cast more light on questions of religion, religious leadership and religious life than at any time in the region’s recent history. Common narratives about the “problem” abound, but few, if any, people have asked critical questions like: How do young Arabs think of their faith today? Who do they go to for religious concerns? How do...

2017.03.07 World-renowned animal rights attorney Steven Wise talks about his ground-breaking efforts to win legal personhood status for highly intelligent animals such as chimpanzees, elephants, and whales. The author of four books on the history of animal law, he has gone toe to toe with some of the best legal minds in the world, in defense of his efforts on behalf of sentient beings with no righ...

2017.02.28 In a series of podcasts, now published as a book, Peter Adamson attempts to tell the story of philosophy in the Islamic world "without any gaps.” The goal is to include all authors and texts from the Islamic world worthy of historical consideration. More an ambition than a feasible goal, this editorial curatorship raises numerous questions. Is this really the story of philosophy only am...

2017.02.26 Muhammad Ali Sa'id was born in West Africa, the son of a leading general in the African state of Borno. Enslaved as a teenager and taken across the Sahara in the early 1850s, he eventually found himself in North America, a free man. In North America he enjoyed a distinguished military career fighting for The Union in the US Civil War. This lecture explores the unique story of Ali Sa'id...

2017.02.20 We cannot simultaneously recognize every object in our field of view. As a result, we deploy attention from object to object or place to place, searching for what we need. This works quite well because our search can be guided by the features of the targets we seek, and the structure of the scenes in which those targets are embedded. Nevertheless, there are times when the search does no...

2017.02.07 The entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus are elements of the brain’s circuit for spatial navigation and memory. This talk demonstrates that the entorhinal cortex contains grid cells – cells with firing fields that tile environments in a periodic hexagonal pattern, like an internal coordinate system – as well as cells that monitor direction, speed, and local borders. Collectively, these...

2017.02.13 We take our perception as truth. But what ends up in our mindscape is far from veridical. We are fooled in many ways. We believe our perception is complete, giving us access to all of the rich details of our external environment as it unfolds. We believe our perception is reactive, with incoming sensory stimulation initiating activity in our brain. We assume our perception starts and li...

2017.02.05 DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is also revelatory. Tracing genealogy is now the second-most popular hobby amongst Americans. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and a booming heritage tourism circuit. However, this talk reveals how genetic genealogy is also being propelled into a variety o...

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2016.12.06 The Story of Reason in Islam narrates a sweeping intellectual history—a quest for knowledge inspired by the Qu'ran and its language, a quest that employed Reason in the service of Faith. Eschewing the conventional separation of Faith and Reason, the author takes a fresh look at why and how Islamic reasoning evolved over time. He surveys the different Islamic schools of thought and how t...

2016.12.08 What is it like to live in a refugee camp? Two American filmmakers head to Jordan’s largest refugee camp, just seven miles from the Syrian border, to live among 80,000 refugees.

2017.01.11 Islam and Christianity share the vision of being universal and missionary religions, both about equally strong in number of followers. Focusing on the relationship of Christianity and Islam, this panel considers the following question: how do Muslims and Christians serve the same God, who for both is God of Justice and Mercy, God of Majesty and Beauty, omnipotent and omnipresent? Both M...

2017.01.24 The accuracy of published research is critical for scientists, physicians, and patients who rely on these results. However, the fundamental belief in scientific literature was called into serious question by a paper suggesting that most published medical research is false. This talk discusses two major open problems inspired by this scientific crisis: how do we know when a study replica...

2017.01.14 Jane Goodall blends her experience in nature with her enthusiasm to give the audience a deeper understanding of the world around us. Speaker Jane Goodall DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, UN Messenger of Peace

2017.01.26 The coast of Zanj was fabled as an exotic land, full of wild animals, curious peoples, and precious commodities such as ivory and gold. Based on the most recent archaeological discoveries along the Swahili coast, this lecture reveals what the sailors and merchants from the Gulf actually found when they followed the monsoons to East Africa over 1,000 years ago. Emphasis is placed on the...

2017.01.29 Is chaos the law of nature and order the dream of man, as Henry Adams once put it? Is "chance" just a name for our ignorance? This lecture demonstrates, through a few examples, why scientists and philosophers inevitably faced these questions, and what kind of answers they gave in the modern era. In order to decide whether certain curious coincidences that we experience are just the play...

2016.11.28 The development of the ship, or the dhow as is it is commonly referred to in Anglophone literature, played an essential role in the expansion of seaborne trade in the pre-modern Indian Ocean. These vessels were vehicles of trade, migration and culture that connected the region in a series of maritime networks. This talk discusses recent efforts to better understand the early ships of th...

2016.11.19 This panel explores issues of global warming and rising water levels, in connection with the research and artistic movements that have emerged in response to these issues. The speakers also share their insight on the UAE’s response to climate change. This panel discussion is organized in conjunction with Holoscenes, a powerful performance piece presented by the NYUAD Arts Center on the...

2016.11.20 This lecture reviews the archaeological evidence for the Sasanian to early Islamic periods (c 3rd/4th to 9th centuries) in the region, focusing on some of the more recent evidence that has come to light (for example from Kadhima in Kuwait and Fulayj in Oman). This evidence is contextualized within a broader framework of interpretation that incorporates the evidence from sites such as Ku...