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October 17, 2007
Dr. Wafa Sultan lectured on Experiences of a Woman and Radical Islam

In SOS’s first event of the 2007-2008 school year, Dr. Wafa Sultan spoke to a group of Stanford students and interested community members about her experiences with radical Islam while living in Syria. SOS was especially fortunate to have Dr. Sultan at Stanford since she was forced to go into hiding less than six months after speaking to us, following an explosive appearance on Al Jazeera TV.

February 12, 2008
Simon Deng, The Conflict in Darfur

Former child slave Simon Deng retold the story of his heart-wrenching childhood to a filled Cubberley Auditorium. He explained how he was abducted from his village in southern Sudan by northern Sudanese Arabs at the age of nine, forced to work in horrendous conditions for several years and eventually managed to escape upon meeting members of his tribe in the capital city of Khartoum. The event was co-sponsored by the ASSU Speakers Bureau, Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND), the Department of African and African-American Studies, the Center for African Studies, Six Degrees and Amnesty International.

April 8, 2008
Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, Jihad: What Does It Really Mean, and Why Do So Many People Lie About It?

SOS managed to organize this event from the ground up in less than one month. The title of Mr. Spencer's talk was "Jihad: What Does It Really Mean, and Why Do So Many People Lie About It?" Afterward, there was a mini question-and-answer session between Mr. Spencer and Dr. Pipes. We were extremely fortunate to have two well-known scholars of radical Islam in the same event, especially on such short notice. The event was co-sponsored by The Stanford Review and Stanford College Republicans.

May 7, 2008
Fleming Rose, The Muhammed Cartoons: Freedom of Expression vs. Cultural Sensitivty

This was the first of two extremely successful events designed to explore the role of the modern media and the responsibilities it has due to its unique power to influence people around the world. Flemming Rose commissioned the now-infamous Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. This event drew a large crowd to Cubberley Auditorium, including protestors and local media. Mr. Rose was introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Stanford Professor Joel Brinkley. It was co-sponsored by the Department of German Studies, the Department of Communication, The Stanford Review and the ASSU Speakers Bureau.

May 12, 2008
Phillipe Karesnty, The Case of Muhammed al-Dura: Media as Political Propaganda

The second event in Media Week was a presentation by Philippe Karsenty, founder of the French media watchdog group Média-Ratings who successfully argued before a French court that the widely-distributed footage of the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura supposedly being killed by Israeli soldiers in the year 2000 was staged. Mr. Karsenty made the same presentation to the audience at Stanford that he made to the French court in February. Every single member of the audience left the room convinced that the tape was a fraud.

May 19, 2008
Ibn Warraq, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism

Ibn Warraq, author of Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism, among many other books, spoke to an audience of roughly 100 people about the deleterious effects of Edward Said's notion of "Orientalism." It was a very informative talk, and attendees enjoyed the event. The event was co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature, and department chair Russell Berman was kind enough to introduce Mr. Warraq and moderate the question-and-answer session after the talk.