Webinar on Shia Islam and politics set with CSB/SJU professors

Jon Armajani, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University professor of peace studies, will be interviewed about his latest book, “Shia Islam and Politics: Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon,” during a webinar at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22.

Jason Schlude, CSB/SJU associate professor of classics and chair of the Languages and Cultures Department, will conduct the interview and moderate a question-and-answer session open to viewers.

This event, sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John’s University, is free and open to the public. The link to join this webinar can also be found on the webpage for this event; you may join the webinar 15 minutes before its scheduled start time.

Armajani’s book “provides an enlightened and clarifying perspective on some of the most controversial and complicated political and religious issues of our time,” according to John Merkle, CSB/SJU professor of theology and director of the Jay Phillips Center.

Relating the divisive history covered in Armajani’s book to the divisive political situation in today’s United States, Schlude said "Armajani offers us an assessment that refuses to oversimply the complexity of a political landscape. In the process, he provides readers with an admirably even-handed presentation of the evidence that promotes constructive conversation. Such opportunities to learn and exchange are welcome now more than ever." 

Armajani is author of two previous books, “Dynamic Islam: Liberal Muslim Perspectives in a Transitional Age” and “Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics,” and he is the co-editor with James E. Lindsay of “Historical Dimensions of Islam: Pre-Modern and Modern Periods: Essays in Honor of R. Stephen Humphreys.” He earned his B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, with a major in philosophy and minor in German at Oberlin College; his M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary; and his Ph.D. in religious studies with a focus on Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Schlude is the author of “Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East,” and the co-editor with Benjamin Rubin of “Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire.” He earned his B.A. in classics, religious studies, and geology at Macalester College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in ancient history and Mediterranean archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-director of the Omrit Settlement Excavation Project in Israel and a former Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute and Villa.

The webinar is co-sponsored by the CSB/SJU Peace Studies Department, the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement, the CSB/SJU Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at the University of St. Thomas and the Encountering Islam Program, also at St. Thomas.