Middle East Event April 22
UConn will join other colleges and universities around the nation in hosting a “teach-in” on Middle Eastern issues on Friday, April 22, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will take place in the Center for Undergraduate Education lobby and rooms 130 and 134.
The day-long program will include panel discussions with UConn faculty members, and films on social and political issues facing the Middle East.
The first panel, “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will feature three political science faculty: Shareen Hertel will discuss international norms and torture; Jeremy Pressman will speak on the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace; and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh will focus on neo-conservatism. Fakhreddin Azimi, associate professor of history, will also speak.
At 11 a.m., a documentary, About Baghdad, will be shown. The film chronicles the effects of oppression, war, sanctions, and occupation on Iraq’s capital city. A discussion follows.
The second panel, “Iraq in Transition,” will begin at 1:30 p.m., after a lunch break. Scott Harding, an assistant professor of social work, will discuss the state of health and well being in Iraq, and Kathryn Libal, an assistant professor-in-residence of women’s studies, will address women’s rights in post-war Iraq.
A second film, The Hidden Half, an Iranian feature film on the repression of women and the issues surrounding the Islamic Revolution, will begin at 3 p.m.
