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Several Hamilton professors participated in “Iran, Iraq & the U.S.: Panel & Discussion” on Jan. 22.

The North East Middle East Politics Working Group (NEMEPWG) settled into the Hamilton College campus for a weekend of peer discussion and review on April 12 to 14. The aim of NEMEPWG, which consists of academics who specialize in topics based in the Middle East and Northern Africa, is to provide a space where scholars with similar backgrounds and knowledge can help one another with their studies and writings.

A July 25 article in The Atlantic titled How Much More Merit Do You Need Than Saving American Lives? detailed the efforts of alumnus Matt Zeller’04 and his former U.S. Army translator Janis Shinwari, to help other former translators and their families, Afghan and Iraqi citizens, obtain special immigrant visas and resettle in the United States.

An interest in interfaith dialogue helped Jennie Wilber ’17 shape a course of study that took her from campus to the country of Jordan to a small Central New York city for a summer of research.

With extensive media coverage of gruesome acts committed by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Jihadists, the Taliban and the Boko Haram, to name a few, many Americans wonder why Islam lends itself so readily to violent extremism. The same question has been recently raised on-campus by the Enquiry, a weekly opinion editorial sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Institute, prompting the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Arabic and Middle East Club (AMEC) to invite a panel of experts to campus in an effort to deepen the community’s understanding of the connection, or lack thereof, between Islam and extremism.

Hamilton College will host a panel titled “Islam: A Religion of Extremism?” with a panel of experts, including former U.S. ambassadors and faculty with expertise in the Middle East, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 4:15 p.m., in the Chapel. The discussion is free and open to the public.

Professor of History Shoshana Keller is presenting a series of book discussions at the Utica Public Library from Sept. 25 to Nov. 20 as part of the Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys, a series made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association.

On the eve of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meeting with Egypt’s first freely-elected president this weekend, Edward “Ned” Walker ’62, the Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Global Political Theory and former ambassador to Egypt and Israel, spoke with a reporter from The Christian Science Monitor. The resulting article, “Hillary Clinton to meet Egypt’s new president: what is at stake” published on July 14, quoted Walker extensively.

Edward “Ned” Walker ’62, the Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Global Political Theory and former ambassador to Egypt and Israel, discussed the election of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s next president with host Candy Crowley on the June 24 broadcast of CNN’s State of the Union. The New York Times in a June 25 article titled “Egypt Results Leave White House Relieved but Watchful” included one of Walker’s comments from the CNN interview.

Concurrent with the Middle East’s growing role in international politics, student interest in that part of the world has been expanding. In response to both, the faculty approved an interdisciplinary program and minor in Middle East and Islamic World Studies at its May 1 meeting.