The Hammer Museum and UCLA Live present a free lecture featuring Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf with Reza Aslan at UCLA's Royce Hall. In his role as chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal directs projects that aim to heal conflict between Islamic and Western communities. As Imam of Masjid al-Farah for 27 years, a mosque located twelve blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, he has preached a message of understanding among people of all faiths. One of his projects is the Cordoba House project in Lower Manhattan, which became a cause célèbre in 2010 and he became known as the ‘Ground Zero Mosque Imam.'

Author Basem Ra'ad

It is an irony that our region, which produced "civilization" ("the cradle of civilization"), has now become so embroiled in the very question of what is true and what is false. My book Hidden Histories aims to shift essential understandings by the West, as well as to broaden our own understandings within the region.

Much of history has been covered up or veiled by invention, is partial and distorted, written by the winner or the dominant mainstream. Vested interests blind us. Often Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean is a palimpsest-much has been hidden, paved over; whole towns and villages, even societies, reside below the surface. What was ignorance in the past is now designed deception.

Basem Ra'ad presents his book "Hidden Histories"On Sunday, January 9, 2011, Basem Ra'ad will present his recent book Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean (Pluto Books). For thousands of years, Palestine and the East Mediterranean have been subject to constant colonial interference which has denied the indigenous population an independent, authentic historical narrative. Basem L. Ra'ad, a professor at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, uncovers this history and begins the process of reconnecting it to contemporary peoples.

"A study in deep time, wide space . . . an anthropology of the present" is how Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia) describes this book. Hilton Obenzinger (Stanford) calls it "a brilliant tour de force of recovery, decolonization, re-vision, and inclusivity," while Naseer Aruri (Massachusetts) considers it "the first corrective history of Palestine, its people, its region, and its culture." 

Tablet and PenReza Aslan, a national advisory board member of the Levantine Cultural Center, introduces a new anthology of Middle Eastern literature, Tablet & Pen, as part of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles' award-winning Aloud at Central Library series at the downtown library. RSVP.

This anthology spans the years 1910-2010 and showcasing the tumultuous changes in literary culture across the Middle East and South Asia, ranging from the renaissance of Arabic literature to Urdu writing after partition. Included are familiar names such as Khalil Gibran, Orhan Pamuk, and Naguib Mahfouz as well as many extraordinary writers and works that have never before been translated into English. 

A celebratory reading with Aimee Bender, Howard Gordon, Heather Graham, Evan Handler, Jaime Ray Newman, Sholeh Wolpe, Gideon Yago, and Necar Zadegan. Followed by a book sale and signing.

With traditional Persian music by Hamid Saeidi, hosted by Reza Aslan.

RSVP here. Directions/parking.