Busboys and Poets Books Presents: Sectarianization

Name: Busboys and Poets Books Presents: Sectarianization
Start: 2017-11-20T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2017-11-20T19:00:00-05:00
Location: 450K

Date and Time

Nov 20, 2017 5:30 pm

Location

450K

450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001

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Description:

Please join Busboys and Poets Books as we welcome authors Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel in conversation about their book: Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East. Kim Ghattas, Washington correspondent for the BBC who writes a column for Foreign Policy and has covered the Middle East extensively, will moderate the event.

This new book challenges the new conventional wisdom in media and policy circles about the sources of the violence gripping the Middle East today. Here's what Marc Lynch of George Washington University says about the book:

‘Why has sectarianism become such an urgent, destructive force in today’s Middle East? This collection brings together a diverse group of scholars to advance a distinctively political explanation for the rise of sectarian conflict across the region. Rather than resort to essentialised identities, these essays expertly dissect the historical, political and instititutional contexts within which cynical political and social actors have mobilised sectarianism for their own ends. Every student of Middle East politics will benefit from reading and thinking hard about the implications of this collection.’ — Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science, George Washington University, Director of the Project on Middle East Political Science, and author of The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East."

Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (2009).

Danny Postel is the Assistant Director of the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern University. He is the author of Reading “Legitimation Crisis” in Tehran (2006), a co-editor of the blog PULSE, and a frequent contributor to various magazines.

Together, Hashemi and Postel are the co-editors of three books: The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (2011), The Syria Dilemma (2013), and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (2017).

Kim Ghattas is an international affairs correspondent for the BBC, a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and a senior visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is the author of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton From Beirut to the Heart of American Power (2013) and is currently writing a book about the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

After this riveting event, audience members will have a chance to purchase the book and have it signed by the authors.