Kelly Shannon argues that since the late 1970s, the issue of women’s human rights in Islamic societies has become increasingly important to U.S. foreign policy. Based on an analysis of a wide range of sources and historical actors—including journalists, academics, activists, NGOs, the U.S. public, Muslim women, Islamic fundamentalists, and U.S. policymakers—Shannon's research challenges traditional interpretations of U.S. foreign policy that assert the primacy of “hard power” concerns in U.S. decision making. By reframing U.S.-Islamic relations with respect to women’s rights, Shannon sheds new light on U.S. identity and policy creation and alters the standard narratives of the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world. The event is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies, the Department of History, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Walter H. Capps Center, and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies. Fuller descriptions of speaker and talk are appended below, and a flyer is attached.

Kelly J. Shannon is Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University. She is the author of U.S. Foreign Policy and Muslim Women's Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Her other publications include book chapters and articles on American foreign relations, women’s rights, and the U.S. relations with the Islamic world. She is currently working on a book-length study of U.S. relations with Iran from 1905 to 1953.