Shamsul Amri Baharrudin Keynote: The Study of Islam and Southeast Asia

An evening at the International House Assembly Hall on February 9, 2012, opened the conference “From the Adriatic to the Sulu Sea: Islam and Identity in Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia” held at the Franke Institute for the Humanities February 10-12, 2012. Victor Friedman, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Balkan and Slavic Linguistics and Director of CEERES, offers opening remarks and introduces James Collins, senior adviser to the dean for international engagement at Northern Illinois University. Collins introduces keynote speaker Shamsul Amri Baharrudin, distinguished professor at Malaysian National University. Professor Baharrudin presented his thoughts on the study of Islam and Southeast Asia, drawing upon 25 years of work in the field.

This conference is the third in a series comparing two edges of the Islamic world. The first conference entitled “Islam at the Edges: Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia” was held at Northern Illinois University on March 30, 2009, and the second conference entitled “Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia: Islam, Mergers, and Margins” was held at Malaysian National University January 4-5, 2011.

The event was cosponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University, the Norman Wait Harris Fund of the Center for International Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, International House Global Voices Lecture Series, and the Center for East European and Russian Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago.