Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America

Looking at the field today, nearly 25 years after its publication, has the field  improved or gotten worse? Dr. Martin Kramer is The Washington Institute’s Walter P. Stern Fellow and author of one of its most widely read monographs, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failures of Middle Eastern Studies in America. This webinar took place September 16, 2026. 

An authority on the history and politics of the Middle East, Dr. Kramer earned his doctorate from Princeton University under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. Since then, he has been a faculty member at Tel Aviv University, where he directed the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. He was also the founding president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, Israel’s first liberal arts college, and served as the first chair of its Middle East and Islamic studies program.

Dr. Kramer has been a visiting professor or fellow at Brandeis, Chicago, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Pepperdine universities and the Wilson Center.