Webinar Series

Welcome to the ASMEA Webinar Series. Throughout the year we will host discussions with seasoned scholars and practitioners on a variety of topics affecting the Middle East and Africa. These webinars are free and open to the public. Registration is required.

Attendees who require a "Certificate of Attendance" can contact Emily Lucas at [email protected] after the event. View past webinars here.

Upcoming Webinar: History of Foreign Interventions in Iran

Join ASMEA on April 13, 2026 at 12:00 pm (ET) for the webinar "History of Foreign Interventions in Iran" led by Dr. D Gershon Lewental, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University.

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D Gershon Lewental is a cultural historian of the Middle East, focusing on how societies use religion, memory, and conflict to define and maintain their identities. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and has also taught at the University of Oklahoma (since 2012) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (since 2023). Since 2015, he has served as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies. He earned his bachelor of arts degree (magna cum laude) from Cornell University and his doctorate in Middle Eastern history from Brandeis University. His dissertation, on the changing perceptions of the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran through time, received the Foundation of Iranian Studies Best Dissertation Award and the Brandeis University Glatzer Dissertation Prize.

His fields of specialization include Iranian and Persianate history, early Islamic historiography, the history of the Bahaʾi community in Israel, modern Central Asian identities, and Middle East minorities.