Lectures

The Centre of Islamic Studies organises special lectures and on-going lecture series on themes of topical and scholarly interest. These are open to the public and attract high-quality speakers. In addition, the Centre supports the Prince Alwaleed University Lectureship, which is a joint appointment between the Centre and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Beyond the Arab Spring
The events of 2011 and 2012 have both underlined the centrality of the Middle East and North Africa to world affairs and profoundly challenged conventional assumptions about the Arab and Muslim worlds.  Not only did they demonstrate that Arabs and Muslims have political aspirations little different from those elsewhere but the way in which they unfurled underlined a popular capacity for peaceful mass demonstration. Given both the on-going significance of the region to the economic and security interests of Europe and the United States, and the more immediate social and political fortunes of the region’s inhabitants in the face of such radical change, we have instituted a standing seminar, open to University members and the public, to discuss what has happened and what is yet to come. 

Wright Lecture Series
This addresses topics of relevance to the study and understanding of the Middle East, Iran and India, ancient and modern, and is open to the public. William Wright (1830-1889) was Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge and was renowned as a Semiticist and a philologist. The Wright Lecture Series, named in his honour, is run by the Department of Middle Eastern Studies in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in association with the Centre of Islamic Studies, and reflects the spread of the Department's academic interests.