Renowned Middle East Expert Juan Cole to Speak on Saudi Crisis

Renowned Middle East expert Dr. Juan Cole will give a talk, "The Saudi Crisis in the Contemporary Mid-East," on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6:45 p.m. in the Fetzer Center at Western Michigan University.

The talk is part of the Department of History's H. Nicholas Hamner Lecture Series.

Cole takes multiple perspectives into account in his analysis of history and politics, offering fresh insights into understanding how specific social, material and cultural factors shape the present climate. This talk will provide the larger WMU community a nuanced and in-depth interpretation of the contradictory and at times confounding agendas fomenting current conflicts in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Greater Middle East.

Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For nearly four decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent books include Engaging the Muslim World, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East and Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. He has been a regular guest on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, and has also appeared on ABC Nightly News, Nightline, the Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Democracy Now! and many others.

In addition to his extensive writings on Egypt, Iraq and South Asia, Cole also covers the politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran in his regular column at Salon.com. Cole continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, whether Sunni and Salafi or Shiite. He is fluent in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, reads some Turkish, and knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. Cole is president of the Global Americana Institute, a nonprofit project that aims to translate important books by great Americans and about America into Arabic. He has lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years, and continues to travel widely there.

The talk is free and open to the public. Complementary parking for the event is available in lot 72-F. For overflow, please use lot 61.

The series is sponsored by the Department of History, with co-sponsors: College of Arts and Sciences, Visiting Scholars and Artists Program, Center for the Study of Ethics in Society, Colleagues International, Southwest Michigan Educational Initiative on the Eastern Indian Ocean, Islam in Global Perspectives Speaker Series, Institute of Intercultural and Anthropological Studies, Haenicke Institute for Global Education, and the Departments of Comparative Religion, Sociology, and World Languages and Literatures.

For more information, contact Nathan Tabor.