Mark LeVineMark LeVine a scholar, musician and activist with well over a decade of experience living and working in the Middle East, from Morocco to Iraq. As an guitarist and 'oudist he has worked with Mick Jagger, Ozomatli, world music artist Hassan Hakmoun and blues and jazz greats Dr. John and Johnny Copeland. As an activist he has worked with various groups within the global peace and justice movement and spoken at some of its seminal gatherings, such as the Prague S26 Countersummit against the IMF in 2000. As a journalist he has written widely in the US and European press, including Le Monde, the Christian Science Monitor, Middle East Report, and Asia Times. As a scholar he has held positions at the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University, the Society for Humanities at Cornell University, and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. LeVine is presently Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His other books include Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation (co-editor, Perceval Press, 2003), Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine (University of California Press, 2004) and Religion, Social Practice, and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing Muslim Public Spheres, (co-editor, Palgrave Press, 2005).Two of his most recent books are Why They Don't Hate Us, Unveiling the Axis of Evil (One World 2005) and Heavy Metal Islam, Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, Random House (July 2008). Read an interview with LeVine.