How does the Red Sea challenge the geographical boundaries through which we understand Africa and the Middle East? In this seminar, Hessa Alnuaimi, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at The Asia Institute, Global Studies University (GSU), examines colonial efforts to control the sea and the maritime networks that resisted them.
Focusing on British attempts to regulate arms smuggling and labor flows in the early 20th century, Alnuaimi explores how imperial ambitions encountered the Red Sea’s physical characteristics, indigenous maritime networks, and competing colonial powers. These encounters shaped local economies, migration, and political authority, connecting communities on both shores to wider structures of global power.
The seminar places this history in conversation with contemporary efforts to police the Red Sea, offering a global perspective on a region often studied through separate geographical and disciplinary frameworks.
The seminar will take place on Thursday, November 12, 2026, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm GST in the GSU Auditorium, Sharjah. The discussion will be moderated by Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute, GSU, and Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Organized by The Africa Institute at GSU, this is the third session of the Fall 2026 seminar series “From Area Studies to Global Studies.”
Speaker
Hessa Alnuaimi is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at The Asia Institute, Global Studies University. Her research examines how the Gulf’s integration into modernity and the global capitalist economy has shaped the politics of legitimacy, authority, and migration.
Before joining GSU, she served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sharjah and an Associate Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where she earned her Ph.D. Her dissertation received the APSA MENA Best Dissertation Prize. She also held a research fellowship at Harvard University, examining migrant mobilization in the Arab Gulf. Read more.
Moderator
Yousuf Al-Bulushi is the Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, and Associate Professor in the Department of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His research spans global studies, racial capitalism, political geography, political theory, political economy, urban geography, and African and Africana Studies.
He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in Literature from Duke University. He is a member of the editorial collective for Antipode and Associate Editor of the book series Contemporary African Political Economy, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Read more.
About the Seminar Series
From Area Studies to Global Studies forms part of the one-credit Ph.D. in Global Studies course GSSH 704: Seminar: From Area Studies to Global Studies II. Held over two semesters, the course introduces students to major debates in Area Studies from critical and global perspectives through monthly presentations by invited scholars, required readings, and assignments. While the seminar is a required component of the Ph.D. curriculum, its public sessions are open to the wider GSU community and the public.
The series is organized by Salah M. Hassan, Professor of African Art History and Visual Studies, and Binyam Sisay Mendisu, Professor of African Languages and Linguistics, as part of the Ph.D. in Global Studies. Four seminars will be held during the Fall 2026 semester, bringing together scholars whose work examines Africa, Asia, their diasporas, and key debates in Global Studies.
