Presentation of the book of Gilles Kepel

On the 28^th October 2019 at the French Embassy to the Holy See the volume Uscire dal caos - Le crisi nel Mediterraneo e nel Medio Oriente (Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan 2019) was presented in the presence of the author Gilles Kepel. The event, which was attended by a large audience, took place in the form of a conversation between the author and Wasim Salman, professor at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI).
Kepel’s book is a geopolitical analysis of the last 50 years, starting with the “Kippur War” of 1973, followed by the explosion of oil prices and the proliferation of jihad. The complete account of the six main Arab uprisings, from Tunisia to Syria, is then proposed. Finally, the lines of fracture in the Mediterranean and the Middle East are described, clarifying what choices await the heads of state, as well as the peoples of those regions, but also the citizens of Europe.

Gilles Kepel, a French scholar focussing on Arabic Studies and Politics, and a specialist in the contemporary Middle East and Muslim communities in the West, is Scientific Director of the Middle East Mediterranean Freethinking Platform at the University of Italian Switzerland, where he is also aggregate professor. He is director of the chair “Middle East and Mediterranean” at the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, based at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Among his works translated into Italian are: Il profeta e il faraone (Laterza, Roma-Bari 2006), Oltre il terrore e il martirio (Feltrinelli, Milano 2009).

Wasim Salman is Doctor in Dogmatic Theology (Pontifical Gregorian University) and in Contemporary Arab Philosophy (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”), and was vice-director of the Leonian Theological Institute of Anagni, where he continues to work as lecturer of theology. He is currently a full-time lecturer at PISAI where, among other things, he teaches a course in contemporary Arab-Islamic thought. Among his publications: Gadamer and theologians. Around the theory of the history of effects (UUP, Vatican 2012) and L’islam politique et les enjeux de l’interprétation. Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd (Mimésis, Milan 2017).