Joan Kjaer and her guest panelists kicked off the 2015 Provost's Global Forum with a WorldCanvass program on the conference's topic, the Arab Spring in a global context, on April 28, at FilmScene in downtown Iowa City. Below is a recap of the event with access to see and hear the full program.

On May 13, President Barack Obama will welcome the rulers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to the White House. According to the White House, the "gathering will be an opportunity for the leaders to discuss ways to enhance their partnership and deepen security cooperation." The unusual meeting comes at a critical moment in the history of these countries and members of the Arab League for a number of reasons. Iowa communities will be able to contextualize these transformations taking place in Arab countries this coming week during the 2015 Provost's Global Forum.

This month, the University of Iowa will host experts and researchers from around the world as part of the 2015 Provost’s Global Forum, “The Arab Spring in a Global Context.” Scholars from a variety of academic disciplines will examine a range of issues including social change and justice, racial/ethnic and gender relations, law, public policy, media, and economic development in the context of the Arab Spring. This four-day, multi-event conference will take place Tuesday, April 28, through Friday, May 1.

A glance at a timeline of events in the Arab world since the December 2010 anti-government demonstrations in Tunisia that triggered what we now know as the Arab Spring reveals a swift and previously unthinkable resetting of the geo-political map of the Middle East. What followed those heady early days has been a toppling of dictatorships, emboldened public action, a sharpening of divisions within national and religious groups, humanitarian crises of alarming proportions, and challenges to major world powers unlike anything in recent memory. Internationally-renowned scholars on the Middle East and Arab world will join host Joan Kjaer when WorldCanvass explores “The Arab Spring in a Global Context.” This is the first event of the 2015 Provost’s Global Forum, and the public is invited to attend the free program at 5 p.m., April 28, at FilmScene in Iowa City.

As has been the case since the start of the Arab uprisings in 2011, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and social media have played a key role not only reporting on these transformative events, but also providing radically different narratives about events in each country depending on the sectarian and ideological backgrounds of various actors. The complex relationship between the media and social change movements are receiving increased attention from academics and researchers, and the University of Iowa will introduce some of these scholars to the public in late April. In just over a month, Iowa City will welcome one of the nation’s most pre-eminent Middle East scholars, Dr. Mohammed el-Nawawy.

Since the start of the protest movement widely known as the Arab Spring, in 2011, conditions in most Arab countries have spiraled out of control. With the notable exception of Tunisia, which just held its last round of successful parliamentarian and presidential elections, other Arab countries that were affected by the protest movement have fallen into a vicious cycle of violence that is threatening other countries in Africa, Asia and Europe.