| Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Oskar Sonnen
(work) 713.524.7821
(e) oskar@vbbarts.org
(url) www.vbbarts.org
Voices Breaking Boundaries presents Cultural Narratives: Anthony Shadid
Covering Muslims after 9/11: a panel discussion
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 , 2:30 pm
General admission: Free
Rockwell Pavilion, MD Anderson Library University of Houston, Houston 77204
http://info.lib.uh.edu/libraries/mda.html
( HOUSTON, October 25, 2006)— This exciting and enlightening panel discussion will be moderated by UH Professor Dina Al-Sowayel and feature the insights of both local journalists and special guest, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post correspondent Anthony Shadid. The panel members will present their experiences as international correspondents and discuss how international news is made by news organizations inside the United States, with special attention to Iraq and the Middle East conflict. Author of Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (2005), Shadid is fluent in Arabic. He reported from Iraq throughout the invasion and first years of the occupation and will offer his indispensable and timely insights. Joining him on the panel will be Houston Chronicle editor Claudia Kolker, Houston Chronicle feature writer Barbara Karkabi, and Emmy award winning local TV personality Art Rascon of KTRK Channel 13.
We are excited to be able to offer to the University and the community this crucial and timely discussion,” says VBB Board Member and University of Houston English Professor Hosam Aboul-Ela. “Through the support of my department and Voices Breaking Boundaries, we have put together a panel that is guaranteed to shed light on the most crucial issue facing Americans today—the issue of Iraq and our inability to understand the Arab World. Aboul-Ela is a primary organizer of the panel discussion and the panel discussion marks a new collaboration between VBB and the University of Houston’s English Department.
Later that evening at 6 pm, Anthony Shadid will present a lecture entitled "Iraq's Tragedy: People in the Shadow of America's War” at Rice University’s Keck Hall.
About the Panelists
Currently with the Washington Post, Anthony Shadid is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has covered the war in Iraq as an Arabic speaking, un-embedded journalist based in Baghdad since before the invasion. His book Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (2005) was a New York Times notable book for last year and is a thorough account of the effects of invasion and occupation on ordinary Iraqis.
Barbara Karkabi is a senior features writer at the Houston Chronicle. Presently, she is covering religious issues around Houston. Karkabi serves on several Boards including Friends of Women’s Studies at the University of Houston. She lived in Lebanon during the seventies.
Claudia Kolker has served as editorial writer at the Houston Chronicle since 2005. A native of Washington, D.C., she graduated from Harvard. She worked for three years as a freelance writer based in San Salvador, covering the end of El Salvador's civil war and regional events including the U.S. invasion of Haiti. She first joined the HoustonChronicle staff in 1996, as a city desk reporter specializing in immigrant affairs. In 1998 she joined the Los Angeles Times as the Houston bureau chief. In 2001 she became a freelance newspaper and magazine writer, writing award-winning stories from India and Pakistan.
Emmy award winning Reporter and Anchor Art Rascon joined KTRK-TV's 13 Eyewitness News in 1998 to serve as anchor of the five o'clock news. Since joining KTRK-TV, Rascon has covered such major events as the war in Kosovo, Middle East conflicts, natural disasters in Latin America, the Pope's travels, the U.S. Presidential elections, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., and the Iraq war, reporting directly from Baghdad. Rascon has reported from more than 40 countries, five continents and nearly every state in the USA. He has been nominated for 22 Emmy awards and has won 15. He's received more than three dozen other local and national reporting awards, including two prestigious Edward R. Murrow awards and three National Association of Hispanic Journalists' awards.
Dina Alsowayel received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, her law degree from the University of Houston (1990), and her PhD from Rice University (1999). She has been a post doctoral fellow in religious studies at the University of Houston where she currently is a clinical adjunct lecturing on the religion, history, and other aspects of the Middle East. She also has taught various courses at Rice University. Dr. Alsowayel’s research and publications deal with conflict, gender, and history as well as other topics and projects. She leads study tours to the Middle East each year in an effort to complement student class time with actual experience. In addition to the academic setting, she worked in the oil industry in Houston and abroad for 20 years.
Hosam Aboul-Ela is associate professor of English at the University of Houston working in the areas of postcolonial literature and theory, Latin American cultural studies, Middle Eastern studies, and the Twentieth-Century American novel. He is the translator of Soleiman Fayyad's novel Voices, published by Marion Boyars in 1993 and Ibrahim Abdel Megid’s Distant Train, to be published by Syracuse University Press in 2007 and the author of numerous academic articles. His book of criticism, Other South: Globalization, Faulkner, and the Mariátegui Tradition will be published next year by Pittsburgh University Press.
Parking Directions: Enter campus through Entrance 1 and ask for a visitor's pass, or park in the new UH parking garage at the corner of Calhoun and University Drive.
Covering Muslims after 9/11 is a collaboration with the University of Houston’s English Department and the project is funded in part by the Houstoun Endowment and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
For more information contact VBB Co-Director Oskar Sonnen at 713 524 7821 or email Oskar.
VBB also offers other programs such as education programs for teens and adults. Please visit our website for information. All events are subject to change. For more information about VBB’s programming, contact Oskar Sonnen (713-524-7821 or oskar@vbbarts.org), or visit our website at www.vbbarts.org.
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