Since October 10th, we here at Busboys and Poets Books have been watching with horror as the siege on Gaza continues and the civilian death count rises day by day. In partnership with Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, African Studies Program & Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, we present The Gaza Lecture Series of 2024. We invite everyone to come and learn more about the history of settler colonialism, violence, and genocide in Palestine. Join us for this session to hear more about zionism, liberalism, and the complicity in this modern day genocide.

Historian Dr. Ussama Makdisi is joining us on the Busboys stage to share his scholarly and personal experiences surrounding Israeli mass violence in Palestinian territories. He’ll be joined by Dr. Nader Hashemi, Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University. There will be a specially curated selection of books about Palestine, the Palestine Israeli conflict, and the 1948 Nakba available for purchase during and after the program.

This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed. 

We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books

Dr. Ussama Makdisi is Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley. He was previously Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston. In April 2009, the Carnegie Corporation named Makdisi a 2009 Carnegie Scholar as part of its effort to promote original scholarship regarding Muslim societies and communities, both in the United States and abroad.  Makdisi was awarded the Berlin Prize and spent the Spring 2018 semester as a Fellow at the American Academy of Berlin. Professor Makdisi’s most recent book Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World was published in 2019 by the University of California Press. He is also the author of Faith Misplaced: the Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001 (Public Affairs, 2010).

Dr. Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (Melville House, 2011), The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013), Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2017) and a four-volume study on Islam and Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (Routledge, 2023). His next book project is entitled: “The Global Divide over Israel and Palestine.” He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).