The Arab Spring: Are the Islamists Coming?

The Arab Spring with its largley civil, peaceful, and immensely popular character surprised many experts and lay observers. But an intense debate continues about the ideological underpinnings of the Arab Revolutions. Are they liberal, democratic, religious, or simply non-ideological revolutions? The recent remarkable success of religious parties in the polls in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt has begun to cause anxiety among those who feared of these revolution as spearheading an Islamist takeover of the Arab world. Do these revolutions herald the entrenchment of Islamist politics in the Middle Eastern societies and states? The lecture attempts to answer this question.

Featuring

Professor Asef Bayat, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois

Agha Kan, Visiting Chair of Islamic Humanities, Brown University

Ihsan Bagby, Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Kentucky

Hsain Ilahiane, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky

Diane King, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky

Sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences and the Muslim World Working Group

Download the flier here.

WHEN: Friday, March 23, 3:00p.m.