History professor Juan Cole speaks on Iraq during Global Awareness Lecture Series

Video of Lecture

Juan R.I. Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan, speaks on “‘An Assured Peace’ or ‘A Victory Hoped For?’ Iraqi Realities and American Politics” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, Saint John’s University.

The presentation, part of the Global Awareness Lecture Series at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, is free and open to the public.

Cole has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq and South Asia. He has given numerous media and press interviews on the War on Terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as concerning the Iraq War and the building conflict with Iran from 2003. He has a regular column at Salon.com. He continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, Sunni, Salafi or Shi`ite. Cole speaks Arabic, Persian and Urdu and reads some Turkish, knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam and lived in a number of places in the Muslim world for extended periods of time.

For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, and his most recent book is Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He also writes on current events, and his articles on contemporary Sunni radicalism include "Muslim Religious Extremism in Egypt" in Middle East Historiographies (University of Washington Press, 2006) and "The Taliban, Women, and the Hegelian Private Sphere" in Social Research (Fall 2003).

The program is co-sponsored by the Islamic Studies Task Force and the University Chair in Critical Thinking.

The Global Awareness Lecture Series has presented some 150 campus programs on international issues over more than 25 years. The series was launched as an effort to internationalize curriculum at CSB and SJU, including a focus on the lesser developed world.