Understanding Syria After Assad: Faris Zwirahn in Conversation with Bernard Haykel

Join us for an in-depth discussion on Syria’s changing post-Assad landscape. Drawing from Zwirahn’s recent fieldwork in Syria and conversations with government officials, diplomats, business leaders, civil society members, and ordinary citizens, this event examines the challenges and opportunities shaping Syria’s transition. Topics include governance, institutional capacity, national identity, economic reconstruction, and transitional justice, offering a rare, ground-level view of a country at a crucial turning point. Questions to be discussed: How is authority negotiated among military, political, and local players? Can a stable social contract form under current conditions? How are regional powers shaping Syria’s political landscape? What new forms of solidarity and division are emerging? What is Syria’s new role in the regional chaos? What kinds of local victories has the new government achieved? What is the status of transitional justice? This event offers a timely, detailed analysis for anyone seeking to understand Syria’s current complexities and its uncertain future.

Faris Zwirahn is a Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Born and raised in Syria and educated in the United States, he brings a transnational perspective to the study of the region’s politics, culture, and literature. His research and teaching focus on Syria, the modern Arab world, Arabic language and literature, and Islam. His current research project explores Syrian detention sites under the Assad regime, especially Saydnaya Prison, as spaces of memory, trauma, and political testimony. Zwirahn has written extensively on events in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs as a commentator on Syrian politics.

Bernard Haykel is a scholar of the Arabian Peninsula, focusing on the politics, economics, cultures and history of the Gulf Cooperation Council states (GCC) and Yemen. He is professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University where he teaches courses on energy, history and politics. Haykel’s latest book, “The Realm: MBS and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia,” to be published by Penguin Press, is about the modern political history of the Kingdom and the rise to power of its crown prince Muhammad bin Salman. Haykel is also an authority on Islamist political movements and Islamic law. He earned his doctorate in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford.