Jytte Klausen Will Spotlight Blasphemy, Censorship, and Scholarship Tuesday

Klausen, Eileen McNamara and Joseph Lumbard will look at ‘The Cartoons That Shook the World’ and also shook academe

Widespread rioting broke out in the Muslim world in 2006 in connection with publication of a page of editorial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper months earlier. Brandeis University Professor of Comparative Politics Jytte Klausen wondered what had caused the sudden, delayed outburst. She found dark politics at work both in Europe and the Muslim world as politicians schemed to use the cartoons in their own interests.

Then, in August of this year, a whole different upheaval began, after Yale University Press ordered suppression of the cartoons and of all other images of Muhammad in Klausen’s book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World.” The resulting controversy has gone “viral” in academia and the still-continuing controversy has received broad coverage as a free-speech and academic freedom issue in newspapers, broadcast media and Internet sites around the world.

Klausen will discuss her research and findings on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in International Lounge, Usdan Student Center. Joining her for this Brandeis Spotlight Forum on the cartoons controversy will be Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Eileen McNamara and Assistant Professor of Classical Islam Joseph E.B. Lumbard.

This event is free and open to the public.

The forum is sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies and the Office of Communications.

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