Teaching Revolutions during the Arab Spring

My brother once jokingly wondered why I, as a specialist of the French Revolution, was hired to work in a country with an absolutist monarch. The irony of the situation became even more acute when, six months after I arrived in Qatar, the “Arab Spring” began. Like people all around the world, our students were enthralled by the Arab Spring – all the more so given our geographic proximity to events, family and other connections with many of the states involved, and Qatar’s role in supporting (or not) revolution across the Middle East. Revolutions by their nature are contentions, divisive, and polemic, and as a result are of enormous interest to history students. The Arab Spring made this history all the more tangible. I therefore proposed and last year taught a comparative “Global History of Revolutions” course devoted entirely to the subject, in part to furnish students with a solid theoretical and historical context in which to understand current events. My presentation will explore teaching about revolutions, in this as well as my other courses, in a country very much devoted to the social and political status quo, but also committed to changes not least like inviting American universities to educate their students and future leaders.