Harvard's Alexander Görlach to Present 'Islam in Europe' Dec. 7

Harvard University's Alexander Görlach will present 'Islam in Europe'  at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 7 in SMATE (SL) 130.

The talk is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by Western's Department of Liberal Studies.

Alexander Görlach is an author, academic, journalist and entrepreneur. He is a visiting scholar at Harvard University where he researches in the field of politics and religion at both Harvard Divinity School and Center for European Studies. He focuses on (quasi-) religious identities and narratives and their influence into policy making.

Görlach holds two doctorates, one in comparative religion, the other one in linguistics. In both works he exams the political and societal consequences of the encounter of Western and Muslim cultures. His studies brought him to Al Azhar University in Cairo, the Faculty of Theology in Ankara and the Pontifical University Gregoriana in Rome. Görlach has had several teaching assignments, including at Freie Universität Berlin and Harvard University, where he conducted a series of lectures on debates in Germany and their influence on Europe.

Görlach is a senior advisor to the Berggruen Institute, a think tank based in Los Angeles, where he works mostly in the field of AI and democracy in the digital age. He is an op-ed contributor to The New York Times and The World Post and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He is also the publisher of the online-magazine Save Liberal Democracy. In Germany he is a columnist to the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche and an essayist for ZEIT ONLINE. He is a Young Leader of Atlantik-Brücke the longest-standing German-American network, to the Westerwelle Foundation and to the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt.