Rutgers University Professor to Present Lectures on Evangelical Christians in the Muslim World

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WACO, Texas (Oct. 20, 2014) -- Barbara Cooper, Ph.D., professor of history at Rutgers University, will deliver two lectures on Wednesday, Oct. 22, and Thursday, Oct. 23, as part of the 37th Annual Charles Edmondson Historical Lecture Series under the topic of "Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel."
Sahel is located in West Africa between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south.
The first lecture, "Building the Church: Struggling to Define Elders, Marriage and Work in Majority Muslim Niger, 1933-1955," will begin at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22, in Morrison Hall, Room 120. Jacqueline-Bethel Mougoué, Ph.D., assistant professor of African history in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences, recommends this lecture to students in organizations such as Mission Waco.
The second lecture, "Mission Medicine and the Gendering of Health Services in Niger," will begin at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in the same room. Beyond African history, this lecture deals with medicine, and Mougoué encourages medical and nursing students to attend.
“These lectures are relevant to what’s going in the world today. Baylor has the Baylor global mission program in terms of doing mission and medical work. Cooper’s two lectures deal with two things that Baylor is passionate about in general,” Mougoué said.
Cooper has long been interested in the relationship between culture and the political economy, namely focusing on gender, religion and family life. Her publications have included topics such as female and slave labor, gift exchange as a social discourse and the negotiation of a shifting political economy through the re-definition of marriage. She received her doctorate from Boston University and has been on faculty at Rutgers University since 2001.
The Edmondson Lecture Series is free and open to the public.
Morrison Hall is located at 1410 S. Fifth St. in Waco.
For more information on the lectures, please contact Jacqueline-Bethel Mougoué.
ABOUT THE CHARLES EDMONDSON LECTURE SERIES
The Charles Edmondson Lecture Series is a collection of lectures sponsored by the history department of Baylor University. The lectures are made possible by an endowment established by Dr. E. Bud Edmondson in honor of his father, Charles S.B. Edmondson. The lectures are designed to give historical perspectives to national and international affairs by outstanding historians.
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