Middle East scholar to speak on ‘Youth Movements and the Arab Revolutions’

November 13, 2013 | Events, UToday
By Staff



Dr. Juan Cole, internationally renowned expert on the Middle East, will deliver the 13th annual Maryse and Ramzy Mikhail Memorial Lecture Sunday, Nov. 17, at 3:30 p.m. in the Driscoll Alumni Center Auditorium.

Cole

Cole

The title of his free, public lecture is “Youth Movements and the Arab Revolutions.”

Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and he also authored Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

He has been a regular guest on the PBS “NewsHour,” and also has appeared on “Nightline,” “The Today Show,” “Charlie Rose,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Democracy Now!” and many other programs.

Cole has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq and South Asia. He has commented extensively on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Iraq War, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. He has a regular column at Truthdig and hosts a popular blog, Informed Comment, focused on Middle East affairs (juancole.com).

He continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, Sunni and Salafi or Shiite. Cole commands Arabic, Persian and Urdu; reads some Turkish; and knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and continues to travel widely there.

The Mikhail Lecture is made possible through the Maryse and Ramzy Mikhail Endowment Fund, established in 2000 by the Mikhail family.

“The purpose of the Mikhail Fund is to support an annual lecture dealing with Arab culture, literature, history, politics, economics or other broadly defined aspects of life in the Middle East,” said Dr. Jamie Barlowe, dean of the College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences. “The college is very excited about this year’s program as it addresses some timely issues related to current events in the Middle East.”

The lecture is co-sponsored by the UT College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences with WGTE as media sponsor and support from the UT College of Law International Law Society.

For more information on the lecture, visit mikhaillecture.wordpress.com or email mikhaillecture@gmail.com.

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