Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Professor of Religious Studies Edward E. Curtis IV will deliver the 35th annual Mary Olive Woods Lecture, beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15 in the University Union Heritage Room. A reception will follow.

Curtis is also the William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts, and adjunct professor of American Studies and Africana Studies a IUPUI. His lecture is titled, "Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest."

The lecture is open free to the public.

The descendant of the first Arab American immigrants to southern Illinois, Curtis has authored 14 books on Muslim American, African American, and Arab American history and life, among them Arab Indianapolis; The Call of Bilal: Islam in the African Diaspora; Muslims in America: A Short History; and Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought.

Curtis is a graduate of the University of South Africa (DLitt et Phil), Washington University in St. Louis (MA), and Kenyon College (BA). His academic interests include Arab American studies, Islamic studies, Africana religions, and U..S history. He is co-founder of the Journal of Africana Religions, and has served as a summer director for National Endowment of the Humanities seminars, and received fellowships from Fulbright, Luce, Carnegie, NEH, the American Academy of Religion and Andrew Mellon. He is currently directing the Arab Indianapolis community history project.

An additional conversation with Curtis about his work will be held from noon-2 p.m. Sept. 15 in Morgan Hall, room 453. Also, those interested in joining in a reading group of Curtis' work on Friday afternoons before his visit can email WIU Professor Amy Carr at AR-Carr@wiu.edu for more information.

The Mary Olive Woods lecture is sponsored by the WIU departments of Race, Religion, Gender and Multidisciplinary Studies, Mathematics and Philosophy, and the Mary Olive Woods Trust. The Mary Olive Woods Foundation also provides student scholarships in addition to the annual lecture presentation.