Author: Shafik Jeha
Translator: Sally Kara
Language: English
Subject: Lebanon & AUB
Publication Date: 2004
Number of Pages: 197
Book Dimensions: 17.8 x 24.7 cm
Cover Type: Hard Cover
Shipping Weight: 0.68 kg
ISBN: 9789953902531
Includes: Tables and Images
Price: $25
This is the story of the Lewis Affair at the American University of Beirut (then the Syrian Protestant College). When Professor Edwin Lewis mentioned Charles Darwin in the course of a commencement address, there were drastic ramifications, including faculty resignations, student suspensions, the first student protest in the Arab World, a subsequent drop in student enrollment, and the imposition of a Declaration of Principles on AUB faculty members. It represents a momentous event in the history of the American University of Beirut, and its reverberations were felt in intellectual circles throughout the Arab world. A foreword by former AUB president John Waterbury outlines how the issues underlying the Lewis Affair, including the controversy generated by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the struggle between conservative and liberal elements of academia, and the question of academic freedom, remain pertinent to this day.