Richard Murphy, the Hasib Sabbagh Senior Fellow for the Middle East and director of Middle East studies for the Council on Foreign Relations, will present a public lecture on campus Monday, Dec. 10.
He will discuss "The Impact of Sept. 11 on America's Role in the Middle East" at 4:30 p.m. in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.
The Middle East studies department and its fellows serve as a "think tank" for the Council on Foreign Relations, a nongovernmental, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. In addition to conducting research and publishing books and articles on major foreign policy topics, fellows concentrate on issues that shape the international agenda. As the director of Middle East studies for council, Murphy studies the interrelationship of the United States and the Middle East in such areas as economics, foreign policy and technology.
Murphy, whose areas of expertise include the Middle East and South Asia, is the president of the Chatham House Foundation, one of the world's leading institutes for the analysis of international issues, as well as the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan organization whose principal objective has been to increase Americans' knowledge and understanding of the region. He also serves as a trustee for the American University of Beirut.
He is the author of numerous articles for several internationally recognized publications including the International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs and the Lebanese daily newspaper al Mustaqbal. He also has served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs and as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Syria and Mauritania.
The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs' Office of External Affairs.