Exeter, NH (September 30, 2009)—Phillips Exeter Academy will host a talk and discussion with author and religious scholar, Dr. Reza Aslan, a national expert on Islam and the Middle East. Aslan is a Senior Fellow at the University of California’s Center on Public Diplomacy and Middle East Analyst for CBS News. He also is a featured blogger for “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN. Aslan will speak on a variety of topics, including his recently published work, How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror, on Thursday, October 8, 7 p.m., in the Assembly Hall, on the second floor of the PEA Academy Building on Front Street. The event is free and open to the public.

Aslan’s latest publication is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling al-Qaida, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His first book was The New York Times’ best-seller, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into 13 languages, was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award in the U.K., and nominated for a PEN USA Award for Research Non-Fiction. An edited anthology, Words Without Borders: Contemporary Literature from the Muslim World, will be published this spring.

Aslan’s writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The New York Review of Books and Slate magazine, among others. He has been a guest on: “Meet the Press,” National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” “Dennis Miller,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

He is co-founder and creative director of BoomGen Studios, a hub for creative content from and about the Middle East; editorial executive of Mecca.com, an online community for Muslim youth; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities; and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Aslan also serves on the board of the Ploughshares Fund, one of the world’s largest grant-making foundations dedicated to global security and peace funding; and PEN USA, an organization created to stimulate and maintain interest in the written word, fostering a vital literary culture and defending freedom of expression.

Aslan has degrees in Religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a master’s from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. Born in Iran, Aslan lives in Los Angeles, where he is assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

This event is hosted by the Academy’s Day Fund. For further information, contact Kathleen Brownback or 603-777-4331, or Andy Hertig ’57 or 603-777-3721. Or visit the Academy’s website at http://www.exeter.edu/. You may also call the PEA public events line at 603-777-4309. Directions to the Academy are available at 603-777-4330.