4.00 PM, Friday 10 September, 2010 | Philomathean Halls, 4th Floor College Hall
Join the Philomathean Society and Paul Cobb
, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, for an afternoon discussion on topics of intellectual and personal interest. Come to relax, learn, reflect or simply to enjoy a cup of Earl Grey.
Paul M. Cobb is a social and cultural historian of the pre-modern Islamic world. His areas of interest include the history of memory, historiography, Islamic relations with the West, and travel and exploration. He is, in particular, a recognized authority on the history of the medieval Levant and of the Crusades in their Islamic context. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including White Banners: Contention in ‘Abbasid Syria, 750-880 (SUNY Press, 2001); Usama ibn Munqidh: Warrior-Poet of the Age of Crusades (Oneworld, 2005); and The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, a translation of the “memoirs” and other works of Usama ibn Munqidh (Penguin Classics, 2008). He is also the co-editor (with Wout van Bekkum) of Strategies of Medieval Communal Identity: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Peeters, 2003) and (with Antoine Borrut) of Umayyad Legacies: History and Memory from Syria to Spain (E. J. Brill, 2010). His next book, Enemies of God: An Islamic History of the Crusades, is forthcoming from Oxford in 2011.
