Visiting Speakers

Dr. Saif's research interests include Islam in contemporary South Asia and Yemen; the trans-temporal dynamics between medieval and modern Islamic discourses; contemporary Muslim political theology; the intersection of religious studies and postcolonial theory; and the anthropology of the state. She is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards including the American Academy of Religion’s International Dissertation Research Grant. Dr. Saif's publications include an article in The Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies and an article in the journal Thinking About Religion. She has also authored a chapter in the book Religion and Everyday Life and Culture. Other publications include interviews and several encyclopedia articles. Dr. Saif's dissertation examines how traditional Muslim scholars contest tradition, authority and sovereignty in post-9/11 Pakistan

Julia Serano is the author of three books, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (now in second edition), Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, and Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. Her writings have also appeared in numerous news and media outlets, and have been used as teaching materials in college courses across North America.

Nicole Shea, Ph.D., is the Director of the Council for European Studies and the Executive Editor of EuropeNow, a global publication for a broad, multi-disciplinary educated audience. Before joining CES, Shea served as the Executive Director of the Eisenhower Leadership Center at West Point where she was instrumental in shaping the Center’s innovative interdisciplinary programs and its successful global operation. Prior to that, she spearheaded cultural affairs programs and integrative curricular development as director, art curator, and faculty for Mount Saint Mary College and SUNY Orange.

Nigel Smith is currently Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Books and Media at Princeton, to which he came from the University of Oxford, England, in 1999. He has published mostly on early modern literature, especially the seventeenth century; his work is interdisciplinary by inclination and training. His interests have included poetry; poetic theory; the social role of literature; literature, politics and religion; literature and visual art; heresy and heterodoxy; radical literature; early prose fiction; women's writing; journalism; censorship; the early modern public sphere; travel; the history of linguistic ideas. The authors he has covered include Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Marvell, Hobbes, Margaret Cavendish, Katherine Philips.  His major works are Andrew Marvell: The Chameleon (Yale UP, 2010; pbk 2012), a TLS 'Book of the Year' for 2010, Is Milton better than Shakespeare? (Harvard UP, 2008), the Longman Annotated English Poets edition of Andrew Marvell's Poems (2003, pbk 2007), a TLS 'Book of the Year' for 2003, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660 (Yale UP, 1994) and Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion 1640-1660 (Oxford UP, 1989). He has also edited the Journal of George Fox (1998), and the Ranter pamphlets(1983; revised edn. 2013), and co-edited with Nicholas McDowell the Oxford Handbook to Milton (Oxford UP, 2009, pbk 2011).

B.A., M.A., UCLA; Ph.D., Brandeis University

Jeremy Waldron teaches legal and political philosophy at NYU School of Law. Until recently, he was also Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University (All Souls College). A prolific scholar, Waldron has written extensively on jurisprudence and political theory, including numerous books and articles on theories of rights, constitutionalism, the rule of law, democracy, property, torture, security, homelessness, and the philosophy of international law.