Author and veteran journalist Carla Power will deliver the Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman/Phi Beta Kappa Lecture for the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in Umrath Lounge on the Danforth Campus.
The lecture, titled “Reading the Quran at Starbucks: An American Secular Feminist and a Traditional Muslim Scholar Find Commonalities,” is free and open to the public.
For decades, Power has covered the Middle East, telling stories about its people, traditions, cultures and conflicts. Now the Time magazine correspondent has written a timely and engrossing account of her yearlong undertaking to learn the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, guided by her madras-trained Muslim friend, Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi.
The book, “If the Oceans Were Ink” (2015) reveals what can happen when open-minded people break through stereotypes and misperceptions and search for common ground.
A book signing will precede the talk at 4 p.m. April 14, also in Umrath Lounge.
Co-sponsors are the Department of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, both in Arts & Sciences; and the Sigma Xi honorary society.
For more information, call 314-935-4620.