Juan Cole in Palo Alto

The esteemed Juan Cole will show up in our part of the world next month to talk about Iraq, at an event in Palo Alto sponsored by the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. For those of us who admire and follow his blog, Informed Comment, it's a great opportunity to hear his views in person. Here are the particulars:

Juan Cole
Professor of History, University of Michigan

Iraq: How did we get into this mess and where do we go from here?

Tuesday, October 18
7:30 p.m.
Fellowship Hall, First Presbyterian Church
1140 Cowper Street, Palo Alto
$5 ~ $15 sliding scale admission - Wheelchair accessible

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the History Department of the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. He has given numerous media and press interviews on the "War on Terrorism" since September 11, 2001, as well as on the Iraq War of 2003. His current research focuses on two contemporary phenomena: 1) Shiite Islam in Iraq and Iran and 2) the "jihadi" or "sacred-war" strain of Muslim radicalism, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban among other groups.

Cole commands Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and reads some Turkish, knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam, and has lived in a number of places in the Muslim world for extended periods of time. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War.