Richard W. Southern, author of The Making of the Middle Ages, will discuss "Western Attitudes to Islam in the Middle Ages" in a series of three lectures starting today at 4 p.m. in Boylston Hall Auditorium.

Southern, a Fellow of Balliol College Oxford, is Chichele Professor of History, Designate, at All Soul's College.

He will speak on "The Age of Ignorance" this afternoon consider "The Century of Reason and Hope" Wednesday and conclude Friday with "The Moment of Vision."

The lectures, open to the public, are sponsored by the History Department through gifts in memory of John Milton Potter '26 and Reinhold S. Schumann '41.