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Speaker: Professor Sadik Al-Azm, University of Damascus
Wednesday 30 November 2011, 6.30 - 8.00 pm, New Theatre, East Building
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In his lecture, Sadik Al-Azm, one of the Middle East's most notable contemporary thinkers, will reflect on the effect of the Arab uprisings on Arab nationalism and Islamist movements. Born in Damascus in 1934, Al-Azm is Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Damascus and is currently a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Institute at the University of Bonn. He was a Visiting Professor in Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department until 2008. In 1970, Al-Azm was tried in Beirut and dismissed from his teaching post the American University of Beirut in response to his writings. His area of specialisation was the philosophy of Immanuel Kant with a more current emphasis upon the Islamic world and its relationship to the west. He has also contributed to the discourse of Orientalism.
Still actively writing, Al-Azm has already left a legacy of piercing intellectual examination of the social, religious, cultural and political bases of modern Arab. Saqi has recently published Al-Naqd al-dati ba'd al-hazimah |(Self-Criticism After the Defeat), one of al-Azm's most influential books in which he challenged the blame shifting which followed the defeat of Syria, Jordan and Egypt after the 1967 war and reasoned that Arabs had to embrace democracy, gender equality and science to achieve progress. When it was first published in 1968, the book marked a turning point in Arab discourse about society and politics and spawned other intellectual ventures into Arab self-criticism.
This lecture is open to all and registration is not required.
Admission is on a first come first served basis.