June 7, 2020

Academic malfeasance: Khaled Abou El Fadl on Judeo-Christian values

Khaled Abou El Fadl, who revels in the title of Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, has a big theory.

September 29, 2019

Fifty Years of Fascination: The Middle East and Me

At the start of my junior year in college, precisely fifty years ago, I changed my major, making the leap from mathematics to Middle East studies. Math had become too hard, the region too interesting.

December 28, 2017

Beauty and Nausea in Venice

Venice is arguably the world's most exotic and beautiful city.  How ironic that it spawned among the most prominent purveyors of dreck masquerading as art.