|
|
Oklahoma City University
Distinguished Speakers Series
2008-09 SPEAKERS
 Wangari Maathai
Nobel Laureate
author of Unbowed
Henry J. Freede Wellness and Activity Center
NW 27th Street and Florida Avenue
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
7:30 p.m.
Environment, Democracy and Peace:
A Critical Link
Wangari Muta Maathai, recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, is recognized worldwide for her work for democracy, human rights, and the environment. The daughter of farmers from Mount Kenya, Maathai is the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree. She has taught at universities throughout the world and founded Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, through which women’s groups have helped to conserve the environment and improve quality of life by planting more than 30 million trees. At least half a dozen African countries have started similar programs.
Maathai has chaired the National Council of Women of Kenya, served on the U.N. Commission for Global Governance and the Commission on the Future, was elected to Kenya’s Parliament, and was appointed as Assistant Minister for the Environment. She has been named a Top 100 Eco-Hero, one of the 100 Heroines of the World, and one of the 100 people who made an environmental difference. Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and Forbes named her one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. In 2006, she received the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor. She has received honorary degrees from many institutions, including Yale University and Williams College.
She has written two books: her autobiography, Unbowed, 2006), and The Greenbelt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2002).
Prepare yourself for Maathai’s lecture. Don’t miss the screening of Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, the 2008 documentary film by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater. The film will be shown in Kerr- McGee Auditorium at the Meinders School of Business, NW 27th and McKinley, 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30.
Free and open to the public
Seating limited. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
For more information, call 405.208.4956
Coming October 14
 Azar Nafisi
author of Reading Lolita in Tehran
Henry J. Freede Wellness and Activity Center
NW 27th Street and Florida Avenue
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
7:30 p.m.
The Republic of the Imagination
Azar Nafisi was expelled from the faculty of the University of Teheran in 1981 for refusing to wear the Islamic veil. She returned to teaching in 1987 and left it once again in 1995, when she invited a small group of her female students to weekly sessions at her home, where they studied literary works considered subversive by the Iranian regime. In 1997, Nafisi left Iran for the United States, where in 2003 she completed her best-selling Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, the compelling account of how Iran’s Islamic revolution affected her and her students. Five years after its publication, Reading Lolita continues to be a worldwide phenomenon.
Nafisi teaches at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where she directs the School of Advanced International Studies Dialogue Project. Her work investigates the political implications of literature and culture, and the human rights of women and girls. The title of her talk is from a book she is writing about the liberating power of literature. She earned her Ph.D. in English and American Literature at the University of Oklahoma.
Free and open to the public
Seating limited. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
For more information, call 405.208.4956
|
