LEWISTON – The director of the Academic Council for Post-Holocaust Christian, Jewish and Islamic Studies at the University of Southern Maine, will speak at noon Thursday at the Great Falls Forum.

Abraham Peck will present “A Clash of Civilizations?: Jews, Christians and Islam in the Age of Global Terror.”

Peck was born in a displaced persons’ camp in Landsberg, Germany, the city where Adolf Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf.” He is the author or editor of a dozen scholarly volumes and more than 30 scholarly articles.

Peck’s parents survived the Lodz, Poland, ghetto and concentration camps in Auschwitz, Stutthof, Buchenwald and Theresienstadt. His most recent book, “The Holocaust and History,” published in 1998, was issued as a paperback by the University of Southern Maine in 2002.

Lunch is $7 with preregistration, $10 at the door, if space is still available. Please make lunch reservations by calling Jeanne Lachance at 689-2843, on or before Tuesday, April 19.

The Great Falls Forum is a monthly public platform for thought-provoking speakers and discussion. Everyone is welcome. A question-and-answer period follows each talk.