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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The <b class="">Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar at MIT</b> celebrates its <u class="">30th anniversary</u> this fall, and we are pleased to invite you to attend our upcoming lectures. The Seminar is funded by the family of the late Emile Bustani of Lebanon and is sponsored by MIT’s Center for International Studies and MIT Radius. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/cis/bustani" style="color: purple;" class="">Click here for more information about the history of the seminar</a>.<br class=""><br class="">The first lecture will take place on <b class="">Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 4:30 p.m</b>. in Building E51, Room 151. <b class="">Malika Zeghal</b>, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life at Harvard University, will discuss “<u class="">Is Tunisia a Secular State? Islam in the 2014 Tunisian Constitution</u>.” Professor Zeghal is a political scientist who studies religion through the lens of Islam and power. She is particularly interested in Islamist movements and in the institutionalization of Islam in the Muslim world, with special focus on the Middle East and North Africa in the post-colonial period and on Muslim diasporas in North America and Western Europe. She has more general interests in the circulation and role of religious ideologies in situations of conflict and/or dialogue.<br class=""><br class="">The second session will take place on <b class="">Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 4:30 p.m</b>. in Building E51, Room 151. <b class="">Melani Cammett</b>, Professor of Government at Harvard University, will discuss “<u class="">Sectarianism and the Quality of Social Welfare in Lebanon</u>”. Professor Cammett will present some of the material from her recently published book, <i class="">Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon</i>, as well as her recent study of the quality of social services in Lebanon. She specializes in the political economy of development and the Middle East and North Africa and recently moved to Harvard from Brown University.<br class=""><br class="">Attached is a flyer with information on both event<span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">s</span>. We look forward to seeing you at our lectures in our 30th year!<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">best,<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dain Goding<br class="">Assistant to the Executive Director of Arts Initiatives<br class="">Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br class="">77 Massachusetts Avene, 10-183<br class="">Cambridge, MA 02139<br class="">617-252-1888 | <a href="mailto:dain@mit.edu" class="">dain@mit.edu</a> | <a href="http://arts.mit.edu/" style="color: purple;" class="">arts.mit.edu</a></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""></div></div></div></body></html>