Event Details:

Alexander Thurston (University of Ohio) will lecture on "Boko Haram's Internal Disputes and International Connections"

 

Alex Thurston is a scholar of Islam and politics. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Comparative Religion at Miami University of Ohio. Previously he taught in the African Studies Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Northwestern University (2013), and an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University (2009). In 2013-2014, he was an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. His first book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016; it examines the lives, activism, and intellectual production of Nigerian Muslims who graduated from Saudi Arabia's Islamic University of Medina. His second book, Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement, was published by Princeton University Press in 2017. The latter book was reviewed in Foreign Affairs, the London Review of Books, Times Higher Education, Financial Times, and elsewhere. His other publications have appeared in African Affairs, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Islamic Africa, Die Welt des Islams, Islamic Law & Society, African Studies Review, and the Journal of Religion in Africa. He has conducted field research in Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania.