Anouar Majid to speak at UNH on 'America's Invisible Moors' April 8th

Anouar Majid, Ph.D., associate provost for global initiatives and director of the UNE Center for Global Humanities, will present a lecture April 8, 2011 titled "America's Invisible Moors" as part of the University of New Hampshire Department of English First Friday Speaker Series.

"We often tend to think of Moors in the context of European history and culture," Majid explains. "Shakespeare's play Othello, for example, has done much to popularize the notion of the Moor as an alien, ill-fitting body in a racially defined European civilization. Far less explored or understood is the strange life of the Moor in American history. As in Europe, or perhaps even more so, white Americans blended race and Islam to define their non-European identity. This strategy didn't go unchallenged by novelists and other writers. And in the process of challenging their nation's Eurocentric prejudices, white and black American writers gave substance to the American republic's quest for equality and justice."

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The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.