Friday evening I attended the following event:

I know Dr. Bostom was disappointed because C-Span's BookTV was willing to send a Boston crew to cover the event, but the requisite permissions couldn't be had in time, but the room was very small and as it was, the approximately 40 people who did attend were crammed in together in a very small space to hear the lecture. The Semitic Museum at Harvard is a very cool spot, but perhaps doesn't have much in the way of large lecture facilities. The sarcophagi take up all the space, I suppose.

I did not take much in the way of notes -- getting a digital recorder has made me somewhat lazy in that respect, and below you will find a link to the audio of the entire talk, including introductory remarks by Dr. James Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard. Dr. Bostom begins speaking at about 10 minutes in and frames his talk, in keeping with the theme, loosely around the Armenian genocide as a way of discussing "the uniquely Islamic institutions" of Jihad and Dhimmitude in the European context. He touches on Bat Ye'or's work and the Euro-Arab dialogue, the recent European riots, as well as the history of these two institutions, Jihad and Dhimmitude -- a sort of "what we have in store for us" if we're not careful...

Here is the audio: Bostom_2006_04_28 I missed about the first minute of introductory remarks by Dr. Russell, and as I said, Dr. Bostom begins at about the 10 minute mark, then goes on a little over an hour including a sometimes contentious Q&A.

I feel fortunate to live in an area like this where such events (and at such locations!) are free and available to anyone who cares to walk in a grab a seat if only you know about them. Thanks to the internet, you can get a seat, too.