Is the world at a historic crossroads? Can the foremost issues and conflicts be resolved? In this series, we will contemplate the world situation with internationally respected scholars who will share beyond-the headlines viewpoints.

November 1: Anti-Americanism in the Arab World: An Interpretation of a Brief History. Ussama Makdisi, speaker for the first session, is associate professor of history at Rice University, where he is the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies. His article on anti-Americanism in the Arab world appeared in a recent Journal of American History. This year he is a visiting professor at Harvard University.

November 8: The 2004 Election and U. S. Foreign Policy. Peter Trubowitz, lecturer for this session, is author of Defining the National Interests: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy and The Politics of Strategic Adjustment: Ideas, Institutions, and Interests. He is associate professor of political science at the University of Texas and is writing a book on electoral politics and foreign policy.

November 15: Oil and America's Kingdom. Robert Vitalis, the third lecturer, is associate professor and director of Middle East Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of When Capitalists Collide: Business Conflict and the End of Empire in Egypt. His books in progress include Counternarratives: History, Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and America's Kingdom (on the American-Saudi relationship).

November 22: Pakistan: Powder Keg in the South. Robert Hardgrave, our final speaker, is senior policy adviser to South Asia Political Risk Services and a member of the editorial board of India Review. He is the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor Emeritus in Humanities at the University of Texas and the author of Comparative Politics: The Quest for Theory and India-Government and Politics of a Developing Nation.