Carmen will be drawing from the book she co-wrote with political scientist Brandon Kendhammer, Boko Haram, to explain the background of the northern Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, which is most famous for its 2014 kidnap of  276 schoolgirls. She will focus on how Boko Haram has affected the ordinary people of Nigeria, both Christian and Muslim, and on the response of Christian musicians, whose music videos respond directly to the terrorist propaganda. She hopes her talk will help the church understand the complexity of the issues in northern Nigeria, where both Christians and Muslims are suffering from attacks by Boko Haram. If you want to read part of the book before the talk, it is available at Chaucers and on Amazon.

Carmen is an assistant professor of English at Westmont College where she teaches literature of the Global South, which includes Africa, Latin America and  Asia, including the Middle East.