The University of Toledo will host a visiting human rights expert Friday, Nov. 6, for the annual Maryse and Ramzy Mikhail Memorial Lecture, the university announced Nov. 2. Dr. Asli Ü. Bâli of Yale University will present “Power Without Order: Gaza, Iran and the Remaking of the Middle East” at 5 p.m. in the Law Center’s McQuade Law Auditorium, according to UToledo News.
The lecture is free and open to the public, the university said. Visitor parking is free in Area 12, while other visitor parking requires payment through the ParkMobile app, a parking meter or a daily permit, and a livestream option is available through the event website, according to UToledo News.
Bâli is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she co-directs the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights and the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization, according to the university’s announcement. She previously served as the founding faculty director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights and as director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Her background also includes service as a past president of the Middle East Studies Association and as co-chair of the Advisory Board for the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch, UToledo News reported. She is widely published in leading law journals and peer-reviewed social science journals and is co-editor of two volumes on comparative law published by Cambridge University Press.
In her Toledo lecture, Bâli will explore what the university describes as a profound reordering taking place in the Middle East, asking what the region’s transformation means for Palestinian self-determination, regional security and nuclear proliferation in a region whose old organizing assumptions are rapidly coming apart, according to UToledo News.
The Mikhail Lecture is sponsored by the Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education and the Mikhail Endowment Fund, which honors the work and contributions of Maryse Mikhail by supporting an annual lecture dealing with Arab culture, history, politics, economics and other aspects of life in the Middle East, including issues of peace and justice, the university said.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: the speaker, the topic, the time and the place are set — Friday, Nov. 6 at 5 p.m. in McQuade Law Auditorium at the UToledo Law Center, with free admission and a livestream for those who cannot attend in person. What we’re still waiting on: any additional programming the university may announce around the visit, and whether a recording will be posted afterward for the wider community.
The lecture lands in a busy stretch for Toledo’s campuses and community calendar. Next week, as we reported, Great Lakes AI Week brings free AI credentials to Toledo Nov. 10-12, and this Wednesday the city’s stroke survivors take the floor in Toledo stroke survivors take the dance floor Nov. 5 at the Stranahan gala.
Annual lectures like the Mikhail are one of the ways a public university opens its campus to the whole city: no tuition, no enrollment, just a seat in the auditorium and a speaker whose work shapes national and international debate. For Toledo residents who follow events in the Middle East — through family ties, faith communities, classrooms or the news — Friday’s talk offers a chance to hear that analysis firsthand and ask questions in person.
What happens next: doors at the Law Center on Friday evening, Nov. 6, with the lecture beginning at 5 p.m. Anyone planning to attend can check the university’s event website for the livestream link and any last-minute details, UToledo News said.
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