Regional Implications of the Shi'a Revival in Iraq

Speaker: Vali Nasr, Professor, Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey

Dr. NasrÂ’s talk will focus on the implications of change of the balance of power between ShiÂ’as and Sunnis for regional politics in Iraq and for the emerging trends in Sunni militancy in the region.

Vali Nasr is a specialist on contemporary Islam and its relations to politics in the Muslim world. His recent work is focused on emerging patterns in Islamism, in particular with regard to ShiÂ’i-Sunni sectarianism. He is the author of The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power (Oxford University Press, 2001); Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford University Press, 1996); an editor of Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2003). His works on Political Islam and Comparative Politics of South Asia and the Middle East has been published in a number of journals including, The New York Times, Comparative Politics, Asian Survey, Daedalus, Middle East Journal, International Journal of Middle East Studies, as well as in numerous edited volumes on the Middle East, South Asia, political Islam and comparative politics. His work has been translated into Arabic, Indonesian, Chinese, and Urdu. Dr. Nasr has been the recipient of fellowship grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science

Research Council.

Dr. Nasr earned his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1991), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (MALD, 1984), and Tufts University (BA, 1983).

This seminar is co-sponsored by the South Asia Initiative at APARC, the Stanford Department of Religious Studies and the Stanford Institute for International Studies. For more information, please contact Ms. Wena Rosario at wena@stanford.edu or 650-725-1954.