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Dr. Anouar Majid, author of several acclaimed books on Islam and the West, and professor and founding chair of the Department of English at the University of New England, will be the featured speaker at the annual business meeting in June of Citizens Offering New Alternatives (CONA).

He will speak beginning at 1 p.m., Saturday June 14, in the Fellowship Hall at the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle. His speech will follow the CONA business meeting and luncheon that begin at 11:30 a.m.

Majid has lectured and given keynote addresses at major universities and cultural institutions in the United States and abroad. He has been profiled and interviewed by Bill Moyers on the PBS program "Bill Moyers' Journal" and on Al Jazeera TV.

His most recent book, A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), will be on sale at the event and at the Maine Coast Bookshop in Damariscotta, and Majid will sign as many copies as time permits.

The book examines the social and cultural conditions in the contemporary Islamic and American worlds simultaneously. The United States, he writes, seems to have regressed into a sort of unprincipled quest for money and power; whereas in the case of Islam, Muslims have failed to move away from doctrines and tenets shaped by people more than fourteen centuries ago.

These two world views, he argues, are leading both the Islamic world and the United States to precipitous decline because religious, political and economic orthodoxies in each have silenced the voices of their most creative thinkers -- the nonconformists, radicals and revolutionaries who are often dismissed, or punished, as heretics. The solution, Majid concludes is a long-overdue revival of dissent in both cultures to work toward a global culture of freedom, one that is governed by the sacredness of all living things, not by the dictates and short-term interests of financiers and preachers of hatred.

Majid's other books are Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post-Andalusian Age (Stanford University Press, 2004); Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World (Duke University Press, 2000); and Si Yussef, a novel. He is cofounder and editor of Tingis, a Moroccan-American magazine of ideas and culture.

For further information call 207 549-3869 or 207 563-5487. The Majid talk is free to all, but donations are welcomed to help defray costs of the program.

Previous events:  [1997] [1998] [1999] [2000] [2001] [2002] [2003] [2004] [2005]

2008:

Impact of U.S. Elections on Domestic and International Family Planning Programs
International Reproductive Health and Family Planning

2007:

Betsy Scholl, Maine's Poet Laureate reads at Potluck and Poetry 
Bruce Gagnon "Star Wars and U.S. Empire"
Stephen Wessler: Preventing Bias, Harassment and Violence in Schools and Communities (October)
Helen Weld, RN, and Dr. Judy Sandick report from Pakistan (Sept.)
JONATHAN CLARKE CONA ANNUAL MEETING SPEAKER (June)

2006:

Exhibit of “Americans Who Tell the Truth” in Damariscotta (March)

2006:

DON LORD, PH.D. and author of DUBYA: THE TOXIC TEXAN -- GEORGE W. BUSH AND Peaceful Beginnings (January)
A Report from Pakistan (January)
Wal-Mart debate (February)
Ted Ames, “The State of North-east Fisheries” (March)
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION”; (April)
Jan Schrock, “Heifer International, Peacemaker” (May) 
HELEN THOMAS, CONA Annual Meeting (June)

2005:

Peaceful Beginnings (January)
Battle for America's Soul (February)
Invisible - film documentary about Native Americans living in Maine (March)
Unipolar Worlds: The British Empire and the New American Imperialism. (April)
Cuba on the Mind: Considerations of Justice and Independence (May)
Reza Jalali speaks about Iran (September)
Who gets hurt when Maine discriminates (October)
A Southern Perspective (November)
Potluck and Poetry (December)

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2004:

Peaceful Beginnings (January)
no other records...

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2003:

Peaceful Beginnings (January)
Empire Without End (January)
Co-sponsored with the Skidompha Library, Poets Against the War.org and
area poets, CONA at the Movies also held a poetry reading on February 12,
titled "Poems For Peace"
Brave New World (February)
The American emergency and Some Things We Can Do (March)
Biodiesel: A Renewable Liquid Fuel (May)
Stealing the Heart of the Democratic Process (June)
The Hidden Price of Globalization(September)
Making Hope Work in a Troubled World (October)
Maine tax reform proposals (October)

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2002:

Peaceful Beginnings (January)
Fighting for Peace(January)
The Earth Charter (February)
Affordable Health Care in Maine (March)
American Culture in a Time of Stress (April)
Alternative to war: A people's movement in Colombia  (October)
War on Iraq: International and Regional Consequences (October)
Hope Rises from the Ashes of MyLai, Vietnam (November)
Potluck and Poetry (December)
Movie: The trials of Henry Kissinger (December)

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2001:

• Peaceful Beginnings (Multi-program Open House for the      Community)(January)
• Balkans Update (February)
• Report from Cuba (March)
• The Tax Cut  Issue (April)
• Electoral Reform(May)
• Shelly Pingree on Democracy (June - annual meeting)
• Change, Challenges and Prospects for a US-Cuban Relationship (October)
• Sprawl (October)
  Dialogue: A Pathway to Peace (November)
• Potluck and Poetry (December)

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1998

• Peaceful Beginnings (Multi-program Open House for the      Community)(January)
• Developmental Assets (Lincoln Co. Juvenile Task Force)      (February)
• Next Steps Toward Abolition: De-Alerting & Ratification of       the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (March)
• The Tobacco Settlement (April)
• Money In Our Lives (May)
• Arts in the City (June - Annual Meeting)
• Understanding Today’s Nuclear Threat (August)
• Propaganda In Our Culture (September)
• Solving Disputes Among the Youth in our Community      (October)
• The Carpenter’s Boatshop and the Community it has    Nourished(November)
• “Affluenza” (Video presentation) (December)

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1997  

• Propaganda and How it Controls Our Lives (June)
• The Economy as if People Mattered (July)
• Hiroshima Day Commemoration (August)
• Ithaca Hours (Video program on local currencies) (August)
• Cuba through an Organic Farmer’s Eyes (September)
• Simpler Living: Alternatives to Consumer Living (October)
• The Day After the Election: What Next? (November)
• Concepts of Beauty and Ugliness in the Creation of the Human Face (art) (December)

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