Reforming Islamic Societies: Prospects and Pitfalls – A talk by Abdulkarim Soroush
• Nov 16th, 2010 • Category: NewsDr. Abdulkarim Soroush, one of the world’s most prominent Islamic scholars, will give a presentation entitled “Reforming Islamic Societies: Prospects and Pitfalls” at the College of Arts and Sciences Public Affairs Forum, also sponsored by TWU’s Global Connections Initiative.
Named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2005, Dr. Soroush is the director of the Institute for Epistemological Research in Tehran and a former senior fellow of Iran’s Academy of Sciences.
In 2008, he was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He also has held regular visiting professorships at Princeton, Yale and Harvard universities and at the University of Amsterdam.
Dr. Soroush pursued his graduate studies in England before returning to his native Iran in 1979 at the onset of the Islamic revolution. He became an advocate of Islamic ideology and was part of Iran’s cultural revolution of the 1980s, a project that imposed Islamic curricula on Iranian universities.
Eventually Dr. Soroush became highly critical of the political role played by the Iranian clergy, which led to his exile to Europe and the U.S., where he is a frequent national speaker on Islamic reform. He also has published more than a dozen books on his views of Islamic society, religion and politics.
For a map of the Denton campus, visit www.twu.edu/maps.asp. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, email JWilliams2@twu.edu or call 940-898-2052
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