The J. Jobe and Marguerite Jacqmin Soffa Lecture supports regular lectures on contemporary issues of global significance. For more than two decades, this fund has brought renowned women from across the globe to lecture and meet with classes. Holders of the lectureship have included well-known “grassroots” leaders in the struggle for human rights and international understanding.
2026 Lecture
Anti-Muslim Bigotry in America: Where it Comes From and What to Do About It
Keynote speaker: Kecia Ali, professor of religion and director of the Muslim Studies Program at Boston University
4 p.m., Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Q&A and reception to follow
Alumni Lounge, Pyle Center
About the speaker
Kecia Ali is professor of religion and director of the Muslim Studies Program at Boston University. Her research ranges from Islam’s formative period to the present. In addition to Sexual Ethics and Islam, her books include Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam and The Lives of Muhammad as well as two open-access readers on American Muslim marriage and divorce. Her most recent book, The Woman Question in Islamic Studies, is a study of gender politics and academic sexism. She is currently working on an introductory survey of women in Muslim religious traditions.
About the lecture
Marguerite Jacqmin Soffa ’46 established this fund to support an annual public lecture on a contemporary issue of global significance by a distinguished woman in international public life.
Past speakers
- 2025: Marina Ottaway, long-time analyst of political transformations in Africa, The Middle East and the Balkans
- 2024: Karima Bennoune, former UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights; Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law, University of Michigan
- 2023: Antonia Urrejola, lawyer and former Foreign Minister of Chile, “Accountability for Crimes against Humanity: From Pinochet to the Present”
- 2022: Ma Thida, human rights activist, surgeon, and writer
- 2021: Sakena Yacoobi, president of the Afghan Institute of Learning, “As Women Rise, so Does the Nation”
- 2020-2021: Wanjiku Kabira,”Shifting The Center Of Gravity: Women’s Movement And Constitution-Making In Kenya”
- 2019: Charlotte Bunch, “The Dance of Feminism with Human Rights: Reflections on Three Decades of Global Women’s Human Rights Organizing”
- 2019: Brigitte Baptiste, “Queering Ecology”
- 2018: May Sabe Phyu, “Gender Inclusion for Lasting Peace”
- 2017: Vandana Shiva, “Women Lead the Way: From Violence to Non-Violence, from Greed to Sharing, From Hate to Love”
- 2015: Renana Jhavala, “Structural Inequalities and Poverty: Organizing for Economic Rights in India”
- 2014: Jean Geran, “Right to Identity: Child Abandonment, Trafficking, Migration and Protection”
- 2013: Sahar Elmougy, “Resurgence of the Feminine: Transformation of Egyptian Psyche”
- 2012: Fatima Sadiqi, professor of linguistics and gender studies at the University of Fes, “North African Women’s Rights in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring”
- 2012: Thulisile Madonsela, the Public Protector of South Africa, “Righting State Wrongs: Enforcing the South African Constitution through the office of the Public Protector”
- 2010: Luz María de la Mora Sánchez, an expert in foreign trade relations and internal public policy, on Latin American investment strategies, economic growth, political stability, “Latin America’s New Stature in the Global Economy”
- 2010: Yakin Ertürk, former UN special rapporteur on violence against women, “Universalizing Women’s Human Rights: The Quest for Gender-Just Peace”
- 2009: Radhika Coomaraswamy, Undersecretary-General of the United Nations
- 2008: Virginia Vargas, Peruvian activist, author, professor, and sociologist, “Women’s Long March for Equality and Democracy in Latin America”
- 2004: Veena Das, Krieger Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, “Political Violence and Daily Life in India”
- 2002: Mary Burton, commissioner of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, former president of the anti-apartheid organization Blask Sash, “Aspects of Reconciliation: Acknowledgement, Atonement and Redress”
- 2001: Estela Barnes de Carlotto, president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, “Disappeared Children in Argentina: the Work of the Grandmothers of Plazo de Mayo”