Europe Through Arab Eyes: Encounters in the Early Modern Period
April 30, 2012
6:00 PM US EST
WCHP Lecture Hall, Portland Campus
Lecturer
Nabil Matar
Professor of English, University of Minnesota
Assigned Reading
Nabil Matar, Europe Through Arab Eyes, 1578 - 1727 (Columbia University Press, 2009).
Topic
The seminar examines various forms of interactions between Arabs and Europeans in the early modern period. Based on Arabic sources from Aleppo, Paris, Meknes, and Moscow, Professor Matar focuses on a number of case studies relating to political history, personal relationships, and travel experiences. From ambassadors to priests and jurists, Arabs wrote about their views of the French, the Russians, and other nationalities.
About Nabil Matar
Nabil Matar is Professor of English and adjunct professor of History and of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has also been a visiting fellow at Clare Hall College, Cambridge University, Harvard Divinity School, and France’s École des Hautes Études. In the past decade, the research of Professor Matar has focused on relations between Western Europe and the Islamic Mediterranean. Professor Matar has published a trilogy on Britain and the Islamic World: Islam in Britain 1558-1685 (Cambridge UP, 1998), Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia UP, 1999), and Britain and Barbary 1589-1689 (UP of Florida, 2005). His other trilogy is on Europe and the Islamic Mediterranean: In the Lands of the Christians (Routledge, 2004), Europe through Arab Eyes 1578-1727 (Columbia UP, 2009), and Arabs and Europeans in the Early Modern World (in progress). Matar is the author of over seventy articles and numerous encyclopedia and dictionary entries, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He has lectured widely in the United States, Britain, Morocco, Tunisia, and Jordan, and his work has been reviewed in major national and international journals. Professor Matar was recently named Scholar of the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts.