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Juan R. I. Cole (born October, 1952) is a professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History in the History Department at the University of Michigan. Since 2002, he has become a prominent media commentator critical of U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East. Some of his views expressed in the traditional media and on the Internet have led to continuing controversies, while other work has been accepted as uncontroversial and authoritative.

Education and background

Cole grew up in a military family. His father was stationed in Albuquerque, N.M., when he was born, and had two long tours in France (a total of seven years) and one 18-month stay at Kagnew Station, in Asmara, Eritrea (then Ethiopia). It was as a military dependent in largely Muslim Eritrea that he first gained an interest in Islam and the Middle East. They also lived all over the U.S. After going to Northwestern and becoming further interested in Islamics and the Middle East, he went on to live six years in the Arab world, and another two and a half in South Asia (India and Pakistan, mainly Delhi, Lucknow and Lahore). He married the former Shahin Malik in Lahore in 1982, and they have one son, Arman, born in 1987

Cole became a member of the Bahá'í Faith in 1972 as an undergraduate at Northwestern, and Bahá'í later became a major focus of his academic career. In the early 1990s, Cole became a regular participant on the academic email list Talisman, which was devoted to the intellectual discussion of Bahá'í topics. After the Bahá'í institutions raised concerns that views Cole expressed there conflicted with Bahá'í principles, Cole resigned as an official member of the Bahá'í Faith. He later announced that he had recovered his private faith, but this is not something recognized by the Bahá'í institutions.

• 1975 B.A. History and Literature of Religions, Northwestern University
• 1978 M.A. Arabic Studies/History, American University in Cairo
• 1984 Ph.D. Islamic Studies, University of California Los Angeles
• 1984-1990 Assistant Professor of History, University of Michigan
• 1990-1995 Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan
• 1992-1995 Director, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan
• 1995- Professor of History, University of Michigan

Cole was awarded Fulbright-Hays fellowships to India (1982) and to Egypt (1985-1986). He speaks Arabic (Modern Standard as well as Lebanese and Egyptian dialects), Persian, and Urdu, and is familiar with Turkish.

Career

Academic career

Cole writes primarily about three broad areas: the social and cultural history of modern Egypt; the religious and cultural history of modern Iran; and religion in South Asia. In addition to writing history, he enjoys translating, and has rendered into English books by Kahlil Gibran and Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani, as well as working on Urdu fiction.

From 1999 until 2004, Juan Cole was the editor of The International Journal of Middle East Studies. He has served in professional offices for the American Institute of Iranian Studies. He was elected president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in November 2004.

Extra-academic career

From 2002 onwards, Cole has became increasingly active as a commentator in the UK and US media on topics related to the Middle East. His focus has primarily been Iraq, Iran and Israel. In 2002, Cole started a blog entitled: Informed Comment covering "History, Middle East, South Asia, Religious Studies, and the War on Terror". The blog has won various awards as of April 2006 the most prominent being the 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism from Hunter College. It has also received two 2004 Koufax Awards: the "Best Expert Blog" and the "Best Blog Post".

Cole has published political writings in The Guardian, the San Jose Mercury News, Salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Review, The Nation, Tikkun, and has appeared on Al Jazeera. In 2004, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations requested Cole's testimony at hearings to better understand the situation in Iraq.

Cole is President and Treasurer of the Global Americana Institute, a group of Middle East Academics who are working to translate the seminal works of American Democracy into various Middle Eastern Languages. The group's web site indicates: "The project will begin with a selected set of passages and essays by Thomas Jefferson on constitutional and governmental issues such as freedom of religion, the separation of powers, inalienable rights, the sovereignty of the people, and so forth."

Views and controversies

Some of Cole's views about Iraq, Israel, and the Middle East have attracted considerable controversy. He has been critical of the George W. Bush administration's policy in Iraq, in particular the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and the treatment of prisoners in Iraq. Above all he disputes the administration's optimistic tone about Iraq's future and questions the administration's motives. Cole is also a critic of Israel's foreign and military policy and its treatment of Palestinians. He also criticizes the nature of America's support for Israel and questions the loyalties of some of Israel's supporters in America, whom he refers to as the "Israel lobby" and "Likudniks." He has been challenged on many points by critics such as Efraim Karsh, Christopher Hitchens, and Martin Kramer. He has responded in turn with a variety of rebuttals.

References

1. Juan Cole CV, Juan Cole's Academic Web site, accessed May 28, 2006
2. Juan Cole CV, Juan Cole's Academic Web site, accessed April 23, 2006
3. Juan Cole @ University of Michigan, Professional Homepage, accessed April 23, 2006
4. MESA Board of Directors, MESA of America Website, accessed April 23, 2006
5. Lifetime Awards for Molly Ivins, Anthony Lewis, Editor and Publisher, March 27, 2006
6. 2005 Koufax Awards, Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly blog, February 23, 2005.
7. Essays and Op-Eds, Juan Cole's Website
8. Juan Cole's Senate Testimony Brief, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2004
9. , Global Americana Institute, accessed May 17, 2006

Selected bibliography

• Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi`ite Islam (I.B. Tauris, 2002) ISBN 1860647367
• Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Bahá'í Faith in the Nineteenth Century Middle East (Columbia University Press, 1998) ISBN 0231110812
• Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's `Urabi Movement (Princeton University Press, 1993) ISBN 0691056838

External links

• Juan R. I. Cole Home Page at the University of Michigan
• Informed Comment - Juan Cole's weblog

• 1952 births
• Living people
• American bloggers
• American historians
• Pundits
• University of Michigan
• Islamic politics and Islamic world studies
• American Middle Eastern studies