GALESBURG, Illinois — Knox College will host Jamsheed Choksy, Distinguished Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, on Thursday, November 8, for the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program “Religious Minorities in Contemporary Iran: The Politics of Tolerance and Intolerance.” The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. in the Trustees Room in Alumni Hall and is open to the public.
Choksy’s writings and lectures explore why human existence is viewed as a struggle between good and evil, and how beliefs and practices shape people’s lives and actions. He is a leading authority on the Arab conquest of Iran, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and Central Asia, the spread of Islam, and the impact of faith on politics, international relations, and security.
Choksy is a member of the National Council on the Humanities, and has held fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), National Endowment for the Humanities (Washington, D.C.), Guggenheim Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Religion. His many publications include Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society
Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society. Knox’s chapter is the fourth oldest in Illinois and the first at an exclusively undergraduate, four-year liberal arts college in the state. Out of more than 3,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., fewer than 300 have chapters.
The goal of Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program is to offer undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars, contributing to the intellectual life of the institution by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.
***Report Courtesy of Knox College***
