NYUAD Institute

“Old” and “new” Dubai represent the city’s dual cosmopolitan context. The almost drastic stylistic evolution from “old” Dubai’s areesh, coral stone, and palm frond houses to “new” clean-cut whitewashed modernist buildings highlights a significant polar shift from tradition to modernism, not only as a mode of building, but also as a way of life. To understand architecture in Dubai in relation to th...

For decades now, the “universal museum,” an institution invented in Western Europe, has been challenged, and its decolonization has become a subject of debate within the institution itself. Yet, Françoise Vergès argues that the decolonization of the Western museum is impossible if we adopt Frantz Fanon’s remark that "Decolonization is a program of absolute disorder” (1961). In this conversation, V...

Yasmine Seale presents The Dove’s Necklace, a fascinating text on the nature of love from 11th-century Cordoba, and reads from her translation in progress. A masterpiece of Arabic prose and poetry, a jewel of observation, and a window into the intimate life of Muslim Spain, The Dove’s Necklace was composed by the young Ibn Hazm before he became the towering jurist and theologian we know today. Tho...

July 4, 2012 marked the discovery of the Higgs Boson (also known as the "God Particle") after its prediction almost 50 years prior. With a ten-year retrospective, this talk tells the inside story of one of the most significant discoveries made by humanity ever. What is the Higgs Boson, and what is its role in our existence? How do we search for the smallest particle with a giant machine? And where...

Published on the occasion of the UAE's 50th anniversary, 50U tells the story of the UAE in 50 portraits of people, plants and places. Acclaimed royal photographer Ramesh Shukla, who took some of the most iconic photographs of the union of the seven emirates in the 1970s, and contemporary photographer Charlie Koolhaas, who was commissioned to shoot a photo essay for 50U, discuss the role of photogr...

The wildly successful world premiere of Iranian-American Sanaz Toossi’s award-winning play and production English (2022) captivated audiences who had never before seen their story captured in live performance. Set in a TOEFL classroom in Karaj, Iran in 2008, English occurs during a period of political transformation resulting in travel restrictions and family separations. The play focuses on the m...

We live in a world in which extremism is said to be on the rise. The 20th century was scarred by extremist movements and ideologies, and extremism continues to be a problem in the 21st century. But what exactly is extremism, and what is wrong with it? Martin Luther King Jr. famously asked whether we will be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice. Is there such...

Pandemic, war, rising oil prices, food shortages, … there is no uncertainty about how uncertain these times are. Yet, we have to make decisions at all scales—from individuals trying to decide how to financially invest to policy-makers trying to curb epidemics with sound public health interventions. Faced with many decision-making complexities, we look to technology with its promise of data-driven...

For almost eight centuries the Arabs dominated much of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula (711-1492 C.E.). They called that region al-Andalus and, although its territorial extension varied over the years, Arabic was its predominant language and Islam its majoritarian religion. Until the beginning of the 17th century, numerous Muslims or people of Muslim origin continued to reside in Spain. Lik...

This talk addresses the lasting legacies of past plagues, in particular the Black Death, because they continue to shape the way we think about new pandemics. We must recognize pandemics as long-term processes and shift our focus beyond epidemic episodes of disruption to better understand how past societies learned to live with diseases. The talk also highlights persistent problems related to pande...

Traveling from Canton to Lisbon and back via Aden and Jiddah, Hormuz and the Straights of Malaka, this talk connects China, India, and the Philippines and the 16th century Indian Ocean in a tale of espionage, adventure, war and religion. Speaker Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Professor of History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, NYU

Recent research in the social sciences suggests that families’ past experiences of violence –notably, war and displacement – shape descendants’ preferences and behaviors for generations and influence economic, political, and social decisions within these families over decades and, at times, centuries. This talk provides an overview of the cutting-edge research on the legacies of violence and descr...

Prophet Muhammad has made a prodigious impact on the history of the world and continues to impact the contemporary world. How exactly did he manage to make a difference, and why are his enlightening teachings still germane today? In answering these questions, this talk counteracts the centuries-long Christian polemics demonizing the prophet. It offers a rare sociological overview of his life and e...

Climate change is here—but it looks nothing like in the movies. Across the planet, the people most affected by natural disasters are somehow still living their lives, experiencing joy while undergoing hardship, thinking up new solutions for our warming world. In Lebanon, an unprecedented economic collapse is wreaking tragedy upon the country, but also bringing around a fervent enthusiasm to innova...

Published in the year of the 50th anniversary of the confederation of the United Arab Emirates, 50U paints an intimate picture of life in the Emirates through the memories, hopes, and ambitions of its inhabitants. Factual accounts of the UAE’s history are told alongside human stories that are the result of extensive interviews with the young nation’s residents and visitors. In this conversation, t...

Current advances in AI are phenomenal. However, we are still in the beginning of the AI “Industrial Revolution.” We are creating the steam engines of AI that will become the airplanes of the future. Natural Language Processing has become indistinguishable from human speech, art creation has surpassed some of the most advanced artists, protein folding, a 50-year-old problem, has been solved, and ma...

By going deep underground and creating ultra-clean conditions, it is possible to produce the lowest radioactivity laboratory in the world. There we can address very fundamental questions about our Universe: How does the Sun burn? What are the abundant dark matter particles in the spaces between the stars? What are the properties of neutrinos, elusive particles that are one of the fundamental build...

Every part of existence is fueled by water. It supports the most important industries in society including the energy sector, agriculture, and transportation. Water resources are under increasing strain as the world’s population rises and the economy grows, resulting in decreased river flows, the loss of lakes and wetlands, and declining ground-water levels. This panel explores the main threats to...

This conversation with Adonis, the greatest living poet of the Arab world, focuses on questions regarding the intersection of visual art and poetry in theory and practice. This gathering is timed to coincide with the publication of a new English-language translation of a remarkable series of dialogues between Adonis and Syrian artist Fateh al-Moudarres (trans. Rula Baalbaki) hosted by Mouna Atassi...

This talk highlights the vital role of innovation in boosting and enhancing the mechanism of scientific research in the UAE from various areas, including entrepreneurship and start-ups. How can we convert research and development into applied commercial projects with potential profits? This would help all society members contribute toward scientific research through multiple approaches. Speakers H...

Great physics requires us to think outside the mainstream—to improvise and rely on intuition. This talk explores three principles that shape all theories of the universe—the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence—as well as some of physics' greatest mysteries, from what happened before the big bang to how the universe makes consciousness possible. Drawing on...

As humans, we have evolved and survived because we are curious and critical thinkers. How do these traits shape our lives and science, and lead us to understand the world around us? Epigenetics, a new area of science, is the weaving of our genetics and environment that shape who we are. This talk explores the impact of trauma and war on our bodies and what we can do about it. Speakers Rana Dajani,...

It is conventional wisdom that America and China are running a “superpower marathon” that may last a century. But the sharpest phase of that competition will be a decade-long sprint, and the moment of maximum danger could be just a few years away. America will still need a long-term strategy for competing with China. But first, it needs a near-term strategy for navigating the danger zone ahead. Sp...

This conversation explores how communities connect with places of suffering, like former prisons that have been turned into museums—specifically Esma, the former clandestine center of Detention, Torture, and Extermination under Argentina’s Junta, and Robben Island, South Africa’s detention center for anti-Apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela. How does this connection impact the developmen...

In a famous painting, Paul Gauguin posed three fundamental questions about our place in the Universe: “What are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?” A physicist interprets these questions as follows: “What are we made of? What happened early in the Universe? What is the future of the Universe?” Particle physicists are seeking scientific answers to these questions, in particular through...