What I have learnt in almost thirty years between Damascus, Beirut and Rome, and the method I use to make sense of it, is available to those who study, teach, decide or work in the field.
This page lists what I can prepare on request: lectures and seminars, video series, podcasts, course notes. Each proposal starts from a precise question and is built for its audience and in the register it needs, whether popular, academic or operational. The topics are those of my work: Syria and Lebanon, the eastern Mediterranean, confessional dynamics, the relationship between power and negotiation, the long history of Damascus and Beirut.
In brief
For whom: students; colleagues and researchers; practitioners (NGOs, development cooperation, mediation); policy makers and institutions.
In what form: a lecture or seminar, in person or online; a video series; a podcast; course notes.
In what register: popular, academic, operational.
On what terms: all activities are paid, quoted according to format and length.
For students
Lectures and course notes that accompany a course, prepare an exam or help set up a thesis: the contemporary history of Syria and Lebanon, the sources and how to read them, a first orientation in the method.
For colleagues and researchers
Seminars on sources and archives (the Arabic press, private archives in Beirut, journalistic corpora), on fieldwork in wartime contexts, on moving from journalism to research and back.
For practitioners
Briefings and modules for those working in Syria and Lebanon with NGOs, development agencies and mediation bodies: context analysis, a map of actors and intermediaries, a reading of the territory and its scales, from the neighbourhood to the region.
For policy makers
Confidential notes and meetings on scenarios, actors and balances of power, with the long view that current-affairs briefs lack and a clear line between what the sources prove and what is interpretation.
How it works
It starts with a request: topic, audience, format, timing. I reply with a proposal and a quote. You can write to me through the contact page.
My current university teaching is listed on the Teaching page.