Until August 6th, 2010 download for free Prof. Michael Sells lecture on his forthcoming book "God of War," which was originally presented on April 20, 2010 at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. This event was cosponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures and the School for Public and Environmental Affairs.
Prof. Sells studies and teaches at the University of Chicago's Divinity School in the areas of qur'anic studies; Sufism; Arabic and Islamic love poetry; mysticism (Greek, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish); and religion and violence. The new and expanded edition of his book Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations appeared in 2007. He has published three volumes on Arabic poetry: Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes, which focuses upon the pre-Islamic period; Stations of Desire, which focuses upon the love poetry of Ibn al-'Arabi; and The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Al-Andalus, which he coedited and to which he contributed. His books on mysticism include Early Islamic Mysticism, translations and commentaries on influential mystical passages from the Qur'an, hadith, Arabic poetry, and early Sufi writings; and Mystical Languages of Unsaying, an examination of apophatic language, with special attention to Plotinus, John the Scot, Ibn al-'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Marguerite Porete. His work on religion and violence includes: The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia; and The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, which he coedited and to which he contributed. His most recent book, The God of War: America in a World of Religion, is forthcoming from Knopf. He teaches courses on the Qur'an, Islamic love poetry, comparative mystical literature, Arabic Sufi poetry, Arabic religious texts, and Ibn al-'Arabi.
About the book (Release Date: 02/07/2012):
From one of our most perceptive writers on religion, a groundbreaking look at the religious militancy threatening our world today. Michael A. Sells elucidates a vicious cycle that threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy: war fueling militant ideology, militancy turning war into an end in itself. He examines interpretations of the Qurrs"an and the Bible that drive global conflict: radical versions of Saudi Salafism, Holocaust revisionism, Christian Zionism, fundamentalist biblically mandated conquest. And he explains what he calls "clashism," the ideology that defines the world as two forces, Islam and the "Judeo-Christian" West, destined by God or history to unending conflict. He describes battlegrounds-the Balkans, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iran-Iraq, Jerusalem-where militancy has thrived on behalf of or in resistance to American dominance. Throughout, he makes clear how important it is that we take seriously the depth and power of religious and clashist militancy. Through an unsparing determination to understand the historical tragedies that have fueled global conflict, Sells argues, we will be better prepared to resist the influence of the "God of War." Deeply informed and impassioned-a fundamentally important book for our time.
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