Category: Center for Cultural and Ethnic Studies

Mr. Zuhair al-Jezairy, author of The Devil You Don’t Know: Going Back to Iraq to speak at National University

February 7, 2014

• Zuhair al-Jezairy is an Iraqi journalist, currently editor in chief of Voices of Iraq (Aswat al-Iraq) news agency and part of the Iraqi Journalist Union, he was the previous editor in chief of the daily Arabic newspaper Al Mada, and he has also written several publications and has worked on various documentaries.

• In 1979, journalist Zuhair al-Jezairy fled Iraq and certain death after openly defying Saddam’s regime. Twenty-five years later he is back to Iraq from London, and cautiously celebrating. He joined “al Mada” newspaper, and became the Editor-in-Chief when the newspaper broke the Oil-for-Food scandal. He left to start his own documentary film company and traveled throughout Iraq, from the Marshlands of the South, to Tikrit, Najaf, and the Northern region of Kurdistan. He sees the country emerge from thirty-five years of totalitarianism and documents the violence and bloodshed, as well as the many brave and extraordinary people he meets. Giving first-hand accounts of the looting of Baghdad and his encounters with ordinary Iraqis all over the country, this is an elegiac and inspirational account of Iraq after Saddam.

• He studied German literature in Baghdad and since 1968; he has worked as a journalist in Baghdad, Beirut and London, and has published 18 books. The most recent is “The Devil You Don’t Know”, his memoir/reportage of returning there after 25 years in exile

• While editor in chief, Mr. al-Jezairy and his Agency Aswat Al Iraq (Voices of Iraq) have won several distinguished International awards for his investigative journalism.

• Mr. Al Jezairy spends his time training those to follow him as a journalist, how to report the news objectively and to participate in, as he calls “The Real Jihad, Fighting for the Truth”.

• 2008-2009, he accepted a fellowship at the United States Institute for Peace.

• 2008: he introduced his unique historical project to record Iraq’s history (Iraq’s Oral Memory); the goal is to record the memories of elderly people about historical events.

“There’s another history behind the violence history.” said Al-Jezairy http://www.auisvoice.org/node/31

• Mr. al-jezairy has published several books, novels and documentaries on Beirut, Kurdistan, Palestine and Iraq.

One of his recent books is “The Devil you don’t know, going back to Iraq”.

Mr. Raymond Barrett, author of Dubai Dreams: Inside the Kingdom of Bling to speak at National University

February 7, 2014

Raymond Barrett is the author of Dubai Dreams: Inside the Kingdom of Bling. He lived in the Middle East for nearly a decade and writes regularly on the region for Ireland’s Sunday Business Post. He has also written for Foreign Policy, The Christian Science Monitor, Haaretz, Open Democracy, The Daily Star (Beirut) and Kuwait Times.

Dr. Valentine Moghadam, Director of the International Affairs Program and Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University to speak at National University.

February 7, 2014

Dr. Valentine Moghadam, Northeastern University, Boston, Director of the International Affairs Program and Professor of Sociology.
Born in Tehran, Iran, Dr. Moghadam received her higher education in Canada and the U.S. In addition to her academic career, she has been a senior research fellow at UNU/WIDER in Helsinki, Finland (1990-95), and a section chief at UNESCO in Paris (2004-06). Dr. Moghadam’s areas of research are globalization, transnational feminist networks, civil society and citizenship, and gender and development in the Middle East and North Africa. Among her publications are Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (2013), Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks (2005, which won the American Political Science Association’s Victoria Schuck Award), and Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement (2009, updated second edition 2012).