Noted Middle East expert Fawaz A. Gerges will deliver the J. Roderick Davis Lecture at Samford University Thursday, Oct. 13. He will speak on the topic of his new book, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, which was released Sept. 11. Dr. Gerges will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Reid Chapel. The public is invited free.
The author of six books and numerous articles on Arab politics and the Middle East, Gerges is a senior analyst and regular commentator for ABC-TV News and a commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."
His books also include America and Political Islam: Clash of Interests or Clash of Cultures? (1999) and the forthcoming The Jihadis: Unholy Warriors (2005). His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The International Herald Tribune and the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.
Holder of the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College, he also has taught at Oxford, Harvard and Columbia universities. He holds the M.S. from the London School of Economics and Ph.D. from Oxford University.
The Davis Lectures Endowment was established as a tribute to Dr. J. Roderick Davis, the former dean of Samford's Howard College of Arts And Sciences. The series brings nationally and internationally renowned scholars to the Samford campus to present their recent work and to interact with students.
Previous Davis Lecturers were Susan Eisenhower, president, The Eisenhower Institute; Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, director, National Cancer Institute; and Dr. Jean Bethke Elshtain, professor of social and political ethics, University of Chicago.
