2009 Conference Featured Speaker to Speak in Texas on March 12

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An event of note.

As a preview for the Fifteenth Annual ALSC Conference, to be held in October 2009 in Denver, Colorado, we are pleased to note that our featured speaker Azar Nafisi will be speaking at the Harry Ransom Lecture on March 12th of this year.  The Harry Ransom Lectures are held in Austin at the University of Texas and sponsored by the University Co-operative Society, in memory of former Chancellor Harry Huntt Ransom. Azar Nafisi has taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai, and is currently a Visiting Professor and the director of the Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.  Ms. Nafisi is the celebrated author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003); another work, Things I Have Been Silent About, appears this month in print.  While teaching in Tehran, she endured dismissal and a six-year teaching hiatus for refusing to wear a veil in the classroom, and her work concerns both criticism of the Islamic regime and self-criticism in the vein of Pride and Prejudice.  She has been greatly distinguished for her studies and promotion of culture and human rights, especially in the Middle East, most recently in 2006 by the Persian Golden Lioness Award for literature, presented by the World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media.  We celebrate her acclaim in Texas as we anticipate her weekend with us this fall.

– Erin McDonagh