God
A Human History
Lavin Exclusive Speaker
Reza Aslan addresses topics of Islam, the Middle East, and Muslim Americans with authority, wit, and infectious optimism. He is the author of the brand-new bestseller God: A Human History, and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth—a momentous work of popular scholarship that rocketed to #1 on the NYT bestseller list. He also served as host of CNN’s series on world religions, Believer.
Reza Aslan is an internationally renowned writer and scholar of religions. His books, including his #1 New York Times Bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, have been translated into dozens of languages around the world. Zealot has been optioned by Lionsgate and producer David Heyman with a script penned by Oscar-nominated screenwriter, James Schamus. His latest book, God: A Human History—another New York Times bestseller—radiates with the same scholarly inquiry that drove Zealot. Here, Aslan investigates how we have historically understood the divine by assigning it human traits and emotions. “Driven by Aslan's grace and curiosity, God helps us pan out from our troubled times,” says the Seattle Times.
In addition to his role as a Consulting Producer on the acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers, Aslan is the host and Executive Producer of two other original television programs: Rough Draft with Reza Aslan, which premiered on Ovation in February, and CNN’s original documentary series, Believer. He is Executive Producer on the Vox web series, The Secret Life of Muslims and is featured in one of the webisodes. He served as an Executive Producer on the ABC drama, Of Kings and Prophets.
In 2006, Aslan co-founded BoomGen Studios—the premiere entertainment brand for creative content from and about the Middle East—which has provided an array of targeted services ranging from strategic messaging to grassroots marketing to publicity and social media outreach, to producers, studios, and filmmakers, including Jon Stewart’s Rosewater, Netflix’s The Square, Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Weinstein Company’s Miral, Discovery and TLC’s All American Muslim and National Geographic’s Amreeka.
Aslan’s first book, the international bestseller No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, has been translated into seventeen languages, and was named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade by Blackwell Publishers. He is also the author of Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age (originally titled How to Win a Cosmic War), as well as editor of two volumes: Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, and Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalties, Contentions, and Complexities.
Aslan’s degrees include a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Santa Clara University (Major focus: New Testament; Minor: Greek), a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University (Major focus: History of Religions), a PhD in the Sociology of Religions from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. An Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also a member of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Narrative Four, which connects people through the exchange of stories; PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world; the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Levantine Cultural Center, which builds bridges between Americans and the Arab/Muslim world through the arts.
Aslan is a tenured Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside and serves on the board of trustees for the Chicago Theological Seminary and The Yale Humanist Community, which supports atheists, agnostics, and humanists at home and abroad. A member of the American Academy of Religions, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the International Qur'anic Studies Association, Aslan’s previous academic positions include the Wallerstein Distinguished Professor of Religion, Community and Conflict at Drew University in New Jersey (2012-2013), and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Iowa (2000-2003).
Born in Iran, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, author and entrepreneur, Jessica Jackley and their three sons.