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Events 2008

April 29: Mrs. Nadereh Chamlou, Senior Advisor at the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region, will deliver a lecture entitled, “The Myth and Reality of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa Region.” In her 27 years with the World Bank, Mrs. Chamlou has worked in technical and managerial positions across the World Bank Group in areas ranging from economic management to the environment. She co-authored a World Bank flagship report on “Corporate Governance: A Framework for Implementation”; was the principal author of “Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa Region – Women in the Public Sphere”; and “The Environment for Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa Region.” This event is sponsored by UConn’s Office of International Affairs, Women’s Studies Program, and Middle East Studies Group. Download the event flyer (pdf).
Time: 3:30 pm
Location: Bio Physics Building (BPB), Room 130

April 28: Human rights activist and former Miss World and Miss Canada, Nazanin Afshin Jam will speak on "Child Executions in Iran and the Power of the International Community to Make a Difference." Nazanin was a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Cadet and obtained the highest rank of Warrant Officer First Class. She then worked as a Global Youth Educator with the Red Cross raising awareness on global issues such as the landmine crisis, children affected by war and the poverty-disease cycle. Nazanin has traveled worldwide representing many causes including helping victims of the tsunami in India and Sri Lanka, raising funds for the earthquake victims of Bam, supporting fistula patients in Ethiopia and raising awareness on the practice of Bear Bile Farming in China. This event is sponsored by UConn's Human Rights Institute, Iranian Student Association, Middle East Studies Group, Office of International Affairs, and Women's Studies Program. For further information, e-mail wsinfo@uconn.edu.
Time: 1-3 pm
Location: Women's Center, Student Union Building Room 421

April 25: The International Film Series, sponsored by UConn's Humanities Institute and Emeriti Humanities Scholars, will be showing Destiny (Egypt, 135 minutes), a film screened at the 50th Cannes Festival in 1997 and earned Youssef Chahine the Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The epic film is set in the late 12th century in the splendor of Córdoba, the capital of what was then Muslim Andalusia. It revolves around the life and teachings of the renowned Muslim philosopher Averroës, aka Ibn Rushd, who was influential in Jewish and Christian thought and who played a major role in classical scholarship reaching Western Christianity. Destiny shows a humanist Averroës confronting the fundamentalists of the day with the affirmation "No one can claim to know the whole truth." Prof. Josef Gugler (Sociology) will introduce the film and lead a Q session.
Time: 3:30 pm
Location: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Building, Room 163

April 16: Dr. Eric M. Meyers, Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University, will deliver the Faculty Forum Luncheon Lecture on "Synagogue Excavations at Nabratein in Galilee and Rabbinic Tradition." Dr. Meyers served as editor in chief of the five-volume work published by Oxford University Press, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (1997) and is co-author of the Cambridge Companion to the Bible by Cambridge University Press, 1997, fully revised edition published in 2007. He is currently president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, having previously served as their president from 1990-1997, and has directed or co-directed digs in Israel and Italy for more than thirty years. This event is sponsored by UConn's Hillel Foundation, the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, and the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Download the event flyer (pdf).
Time: 5 pm
Location: Babbidge Library, Class of 1947 Room

April 14: Dr. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a visiting scholar with UConn's Women's Studies Program, will deliver a lecture on "The Women's Movement in Iran." She is also to receive the Middle East Studies Achievement Award, which is given by the Middle East Studies Group to a distinguished individual for lifetime achievements in the promotion of knowledge and awareness within and about the Middle East. Dr. Haghighatjoo was an elected parliamentarian in Iran as well as a fellow at MIT's Center for International Relations and Harvard University's Women and Public Policy Program.
Time: 4:30 pm
Location: Babbidge Library, Class of 1947 Room

April 8: History Professor Fakhreddin Azimi discusses his new book, "The Quest for Democracy in Iran: A Century for Struggle against Authoritarian Rule," which traces Iran's struggle for the establishment of representative government from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 through the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, the Anglo-American-backed coup of 1953, the revolution of 1979, and present-day Iran.
Time: 4-6 pm
Location: UConn Co-op