Lectures & Special Events

The ideological/propaganda challenge of the Islamic State is unique in terms of both message and propagation. Much hyperbole has gone into either exaggerating or minimizing this challenge for reasons sometimes only tangentially connected with the threat. Fernandez’s remarks place the potent ISIS narrative within the broader context of a deep crisis of authority in the Sunni Arab Muslim world, facilitated by regional events and amplified by historic, regional political-military shifts and an ongoing global revolution in the use of social media. Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and board member of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. He retired in 2015 after 32 years in the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor. Ambassador Fernandez served as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Khartoum, Sudan and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and was Coordinator at the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) from 2012 to 2015. He also served in senior public diplomacy positions in Afghanistan, Jordan, Guatemala, Syria, Kuwait, and in the State Department’s Near East Bureau (NEA) in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Duke University Center for International Studies (DUCIS) and the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security (TCTHS).

The Asian Pacific Studies Institute at Duke University hosted Leta Hong Fincher to speak about her new book, "Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequalities in China". Hong Fincher recently completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at Tsinghua University. Hong Fincher tweets from @letahong.

The Cosby Show at 30: Reflections on Race, Parenting, Inequality and Education This September marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of The Cosby Show—the landmark television sitcom starring comedian and philanthropist Bill Cosby and Tony Award winning actress Phylicia Rashad. That fall the duo inaugurated their roles of Heathcliff and Clair Hanks Huxtable, two highly educated, professional and upper middle-class African-American parents of five children. The series, which ran from 1984-1992—shortly before the re-election of Ronald Reagan and ending months before the election of Bill Clinton—consistently ranked in the top-5 among American television viewers, including five straight seasons (1985-1990) where it was the most popular television show in America. To commemorate the anniversary of The Cosby Show’s debut, The Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship (CADCE) at the Duke Consortium on Social Equity, in conjunction with the John Hope Franklin Center, is hosting a roundtable discussion, The Cosby Show at 30: Reflections on Race, Parenting, Inequality and Education, September 18, 2014 at 7:00pm at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University (2204 Erwin Road). Blair LM Kelley—Associate Professor of History and Assistant Dean for interdisciplinary studies and international programs at NC State University. Wahneema Lubiano—Associate Professor of African & African American Studies and Literature at Duke University Natalie Bullock Brown—Chair of the Department of Film and Interactive Media at Saint Augustine’s University Joshua L. Lazard --C. Eric Lincoln Minister for Student Engagement at Duke University Chapel Moderated by Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University and Director of the Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship.

A Political Theory Workshop, "The Making of the Constitution." Gordon Wood (Brown University) will be discussing his work. This event is made possible by a grant from the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History.

The third session from the Islamic Media conference

On January 21st the John Hope Franklin Center hosted a celebration of the Haitian Declaration of Independence. Duke Professors Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jenson along with Assistant Professor Julia Gaffield, and Professor Richard Rabinowitz partook in a roundtable discussion on the declaration's history and creation.

David Degner is a photojournalist who has been based in Cairo, Egypt for the past 3 years. His work has been published in most major publications from The New York Times to The Guardian, TIME to Vice, The Wall Street Journal to AdBusters. Degner will discuss the specifics of gathering information as a journalist on the ground in the quickly-evolving situations of the revolutions around the Middle East, drawing on his experience working in the middle of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and the latest conflict in Gaza.

Lauren Zalla and Quinn Holmquist titled "Kreyòl pale, Kreyòl konprann: Esperyans nou nan lanmè kreyòl la."

This interactive workshop explores the aesthetics of Middle Eastern Islam through digital production, music, architecture, art, satellite television, and social media. How does cultural production breathe new life into older religious forms? How is this new life lived, felt, and experienced? How does material production give expression to the spirit, making the invisible visible? How do representational practices give voice to the soul? In this workshop, Duke students perform an interactive public sphere by engaging scholars in fields critical to the disciplinary study of media and the senses.

This lecture and reception are the opening events for a closed workshop on Islamic Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa. It brings together twenty US-based scholars and Africa-based scholars and administrators from Islamic universities and colleges in Africa to discuss the history and future of Islamic universities and education in Africa and their contributions to educational reform and development in Africa.

Adriana Brodsky St. Mary’s College of Maryland “The Limits of Community: Sephardim and their Central Institutions, Argentina 1920- 1950.” Steven Hyland Wingate University “A Solemn Expression of Faith: The Islamic Communities and the Failed Attempt to Erect a Mosque in Peronist Argentina.”

This workshop’s two panels will offer new approaches to the comparative study of the Jewish and Muslim communities in Argentina and Brazil, focusing on integration patterns. The workshop is part of the Center for European Studies’ initiative on “Jews & Muslims: Histories, Diasporas, and the Meaning of the European.” The initiative explores new comparative global approaches to the study of Jewish and Muslim communities. Supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Duke University Office of the Provost, the workshop is sponsored by the Center for European Studies, the Duke Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at Duke University and the Duke Islamic Studies Center.

Today, civilizations are more open to each other more than ever before. We now live in highly diverse, multi-civilizational societies. The Other is no longer there but here. Islamic civilization has become intertwined with other civilizations. Is this a new phenomenon? Where is it leading?

The Bioinformatics Group at the National Marrow Donor Program are conducting a series of studies that combine new data collection methods with genetic ancestry to improve donor patient matches. Director Martin Maiers and Scientist Abeer Madbouly at the Bioinformatics Group commissioned Lynn Fellman to produce a video about this research. The 3-minute video was presented November, 2012, during Dr. Madbouly’s talk to medical professionals and scientists. It explains that people alive today have unique markers in their genes that reflect ancient migrations and contemporary mixing. In a land of many Multis, like the United States, people with mixed genetic ancestry who need a stem cell transplant have difficulty finding a matching donor. Dr. Madbouly and her colleagues hope to find that more exact genetic data and measurable ethnic information may result in matching more donors with patients for more successful transplant outcomes. Lynn Fellman is an independent multimedia artist focusing on human evolution and genomic science. She works with scientists to communicate their research through art and narrative. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, she is currently an artist and journalist in residence at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent).

Professor Maghraoui's class, "The Arab Spring" presents a debate.

Muslim communities passed through early modernity without adopting the printing press that transformed religious and intellectual life in Europe. But between 1810 and 1830 Muslims began printing in a series of distant but connected cities from Calcutta, Cairo, Valetta and Lucknow to Tabriz, Kazan, Saint Petersburg and Singapore. Surveying the first presses, printers and books in each of these places, the lecture reconstructs the global interactions that gave birth to Muslim printing as European industrial products crossed cultural and political frontiers through closer contact with Indian, Iranian, Tatar, Malay and Arab middlemen. From its nursing by Christian missionaries and their trans-cultural journeymen, we follow the infancy of Muslim printing through responses to European industrialization on the distant frontiers of empire.

Muslim communities passed through early modernity without adopting the printing press that transformed religious and intellectual life in Europe. But between 1810 and 1830 Muslims began printing in a series of distant but connected cities from Calcutta, Cairo, Valetta and Lucknow to Tabriz, Kazan, Saint Petersburg and Singapore. Surveying the first presses, printers and books in each of these places, the lecture reconstructs the global interactions that gave birth to Muslim printing as European industrial products crossed cultural and political frontiers through closer contact with Indian, Iranian, Tatar, Malay and Arab middlemen. From its nursing by Christian missionaries and their trans-cultural journeymen, we follow the infancy of Muslim printing through responses to European industrialization on the distant frontiers of empire.

Herman Teule, professor of Eastern Christianity at the Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), where he is the head of the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, and the Catholic University of Louvain. He studied theology, comparative religion and oriental languages at the Universities of Amsterdam and Louvain, will be speaking on Islamism & Iraqi Christians on April 4th. Teule holds a PhD (Louvain) in Oriental Studies. Teule also holds a Visiting professorships in Moscow (St Tychon's theological University) and Kottayam-India (Mahatma Ghandi University).

Yan Lianke is the author of Lennin's Kisses and currently a finalist for the Man Booker International literary prize.

Professor John Agresto will shed a new light on the unfolding debacles in Iraq, Iran, and the Middle East and how the chasm between America’s expectations and political reality was growing wider and ended up in the failure of noble intentions. From a neoconservative vintage point, Agresto will examine the problems the US faces in spreading democracy abroad: “If a nation is divided rather than a pluralistic nation, liberal democracy will fail.” John Agresto is currently Chair of the New Mexico State Advisory Committee for the US Commission on Civil Rights, Member of the Board of Trustees of AUIS and is chair of Academic Affairs Committee of the Board. He was Chancellor and Provost of American University in Sulamani (Iraq) 2009-2012 and a visiting fellow, James Madison Program: American Ideals & Institutions, Princeton University 2008-2009. He is the author of the book Mugged By Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions (2007).

A presentation on the politics of walls and borders to show how these concrete barriers have fractured the city of Baghdad, as shown in contemporary Iraqi poetry. This presentation focuses on the ways in which borders both define and delimit the identity of subaltern "Others." It then demonstrates how literature provides a counter-occupation resistance narrative to reclaim identity and subjectivity.

Nelly van Doorn-Harder recently met with newly appointed Coptic leader, Pope Tawadros II in Cairo. Her latest book, co-authored with Magdi Guirguis, The Emergence of the Modern Coptic Papacy (The Popes of Egypt, Volume 3) is the latest volume of a three part series about the Coptic Papacy. Nelly van Doorn-Harder is professor of Islamic Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. She was born and raised in the Netherlands were she earned her PhD on the topic of women in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. Before moving to the USA she was director of a refugee program in Cairo, Egypt, and taught Islamic Studies at universities in the Netherlands (Leiden) and Indonesia (Yogyakarta). Her areas of study focus on Islam and Christianity in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, human rights and gender in religion, and minority cultures in Islamic countries.

The question and answer session from Robert Jones' lecture: Religious Minorities in America: Islam in Context

Dr. Robert P. Jones is the founding CEO of PRRI and a leading scholar and commentator on religion, values, and public life. He is the author of two academic books and numerous peer-review articles on religion and public policy. Dr. Jones writes a weekly “Figuring Faith” column at the Washington Post’s On Faith section. Dr. Jones serves on the national steering committees for both the Religion and Politics Section and the Religion and the Social Sciences Section at the American Academy of Religion and is a member of the editorial board for “Politics and Religion,” a journal of the American Political Science Association. He is also an active member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Society of Christian Ethics, and the American Association of Public Opinion Research. He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University, where he specialized in sociology of religion, politics, and religious ethics. He also holds a M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Before founding PRRI, Dr. Jones worked as a consultant and senior research fellow at several think tanks in Washington, DC, and was assistant professor of religious studies at Missouri State University. Dr. Jones is frequently featured in major national media such as CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and others. Dr. Jones’ two books are Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life and Liberalism’s Troubled Search for Equality.

Said Graiouid lectures to Professor Maghraoui's class, The Arab Spring.

John Zogby, founder of the "Zogby Poll" and the Zogby Companies answers questions at the Sanford School of Public Policy about minorities roll in the 2012 presidential election. This lecture is part of the "Citizenship, Democracy and Elections" series, and is organized by the Duke Islamic Studies Center, and the Duke University Middle East Studies Center.

John Zogby, founder of the "Zogby Poll" and the Zogby Companies speaks at the Sanford School of Public Policy about minorities roll in the 2012 presidential election. This lecture is part of the "Citizenship, Democracy and Elections" series, and is organized by the Duke Islamic Studies Center, and the Duke University Middle East Studies Center.

Joshua Landis is Associate Professor of Middle East Studies and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and author of "Syria Comment," a daily newsletter on Syrian politics. Landis is one of the foremost authorities in the US on Syria and is a frequent analyst on TV and radio. This lecture is part of our lecture series "The Islamic Middle East and Its Religious Minorities." This lecture is cosponsored by the Duke Department of Religion and the Duke-UNC Consortium of Middle East Studies.

A native of Lebanon, Professor Khater holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History form the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. His latest book is Embracing the Divine: Gender, Passion, and Politics in the Christian Middle East.

Ten years after the fall of the Taliban and the intervention of the international community in Afghanistan, Afghans continue to be the most exiled people in the world. In 2010, three out of ten refugees in the world were originating from Afghanistan. Disillusioned and dispirited from a peace that never comes, Afghans are on exile¿s road again. Greece, Europe's first entry point from the East, receives the largest amount of migrants and asylum-seekers from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. Afghans top the list of nationalities in need of international protection. In 1989, Zalmai began to work as a freelance photographer, traveled around the world, and eventually returned to Afghanistan, where he continues documenting the ongoing war and plight of the Afghan people.

Professor Kadivar talks about the future of secularism in Iran.

John Voll and Bruce Lawrence talk about Albert Hourani's book, "A History of the Arab Peoples".

Intellectual History Seminar

Ambassador of Iraq, Samir Sumaida’ie talks about teaching Arabic in Arabic.

Teachers from Lakewood and Burton Elementary Schools traveled to Guanajuato, Mexico in 2010, just as teachers from Alexander County Schools did in 2009. In addition to reading and writing about Mexico, these teachers saw it, smelled it, tasted it, and lived it during their weeklong program. They stayed with families in Guanajuato, visited schools and students from the region, and completed assignments to help them develop curriculum to use in their own classrooms. In addition to organizing the trip, the Outreach Office conducted a series of preliminary workshops, which introduced the historical, political, social and cultural aspects of Mexico and the interconnections to the U.S. These workshops included panel and group discussions with Mexican immigrant students and parents who are currently living in North Carolina.

This interactive discussion touched on the following topics, and details from case studies were shared to frame the discussion of the internationalization of curriculum in US higher education. · Deeper understanding of what internationalization means · Interpretations of internationalization in different disciplinary and institutional contexts · Role of faculty in internationalization of the curriculum · Examples of internationalized curriculum development resources and processes This event was co-sponsored by AIEA and the Australian Learning & Teaching Council.

Andrea Elliott is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for her series "An Imam in America," which chronicled the life of an immigrant Muslim leader in Brooklyn. Since joining The Times in 2003, Elliott's stories have included an examination of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a series on the lives of Muslims in the military, an investigation into the radicalization of more than 20 Somali-Americans from Minneapolis and special reports for The New York Times Magazine on the lives of Moroccan suicide bombers and the journey of an American jihadist from Alabama to Somalia.Co-sponsors: Duke Islamic Studies Center, Duke University Middle East Studies Center and DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy

Bicentennial of ideals: dependence, independence, ... Keynote Speaker Rebecca J. Scott. History & Law, University of Michigan. National Humanities Center Fellow 2010-2011 “‘People of color who do not recognize slavery and have come here seeking asylum.’: Freedom, Re-enslavement, and the Diaspora of Saint-Domingue, 1803-1817.”

The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa took place in locations all around the country this past summer. With three months’ hindsight, we gather to celebrate and reflect on it. What, precisely, happened during that month-long experience, and what remains? How was the World Cup a ‘state of exception’ in South Africa, and what should we make of that? And, not to be glossed over: Why should we love the vuvuzela?

John Hope Franklin Center

John Hope Franklin Center

David Van Biema is currently writing Speaking to God: A History and Cultural Interpretation of the Psalms for Simon & Schuster. He is a contract contributor to Time magazine on the topic of religion. Prior to going on contract, he was with Time for 15 years, ten of them covering religion, and eight of them as head religion writer. While at Duke, David plans to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with our faculty experts on Islam and Muslims to enhance his understanding of key issues and concerns facing today's Muslim communities. He is especially interested in the question of how a new generation of Muslim students studying Islam in the academy, either as a supplement to their major concentration or as their speciality, has the potential to change the practice of Islam in the U.S. --and perhaps eventually to affect it worldwide. David has written over 25 covers for Time and won numerous religion-writing awards, including three Wilburs from the Religion Communicators Council. Prior to working at Time, Van Biema was (in chronological order) a senior writer at People Magazine, The Washington Post Sunday Magazine, and Life Magazine, writing cover stories for all three. Van Biema is a graduate of Wesleyan University (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Manhattan with his family.

Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa¿s leading journalists. His latest book, ¿A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream¿ is published by Palgrave Macmillan in the USA and UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title, ¿Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred¿. The book won the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize and the NB Books 2008 Recht Malan Prize. The book has been lauded by the Times Literary Supplement as ¿probably the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid¿ and by the BBC¿s Fergal Keane as ¿the indispensable and definitive account of post-apartheid South Africa.¿

Achille Mbembe (University of the Witwatersrand, WISER), Sarah Nuttall (University of the Witwatersrand, WISER), Diane Nelson (Duke University, Cultural Anthropology), Anne-Maria Makhulu (Duke University, Cultural Anthropology), moderator. Please join us in the Franklin Center for what we hope will be a lively discussion of District 9, Johannesburg, sci-fi and the politics of horror. This event has been co-organized and co-sponsored by African and African American Studies and the Concilium on Southern Africa. For further information please contact Katie Joyce (katiejoy). Co-sponsors: African and African American Studies and Concilium on Southern Africa

The Hon. Justice Albie Sachs, Constitutional Court of South Africa.Moderated by Prof. Catherine Adcock Admay, Public Policy Studies and the Duke Center for International Development.”To appreciate the alliance between justice and art and its relation to the fine art of persuasion,Justice Albie Sachs is the very best guide.” Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, United States Supreme Court.Reception to follow event. Co-sponsors: Concilium on Southern Africa, Provost’s Office, Vice Provost for International Affairs, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Duke Center for International Development, Duke Human Rights Center, Law School, Franklin Humanities Institute, Kenan Institute for Ethics, Nasher Museum of Art and Duke University Center for International Studies

African Ubuntu and South African Constitutionalism, a public conversation between Justice Yvonne Mokgoro (Constitutional Court of South Africa) and Jean and John Comaroff (University of Chicago) will explore what the term Ubuntu, a concept encapsulating values of African humanism, means in the context of the contemporary jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. Reception to follow in Room 130 John Hope Franklin Center and Gallery space Co-sponsors: Concilium on Southern Africa, Duke University Center for International Studies, Franklin Humanities Institute, Provost’s Office, Vice Provost for International Affairs and DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy