Recent Arab uprisings in the Middle East raise questions about the region’s stability and future. The editor-at-large for the Beirut-based Daily Star and internationally syndicated columnist and author, Rami Khouri will engage Cleveland-area audiences in a discussion and dialogue about these events when he gives two free, public talks as the guest speaker in a new series, sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies. The Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies is composed of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, Kent State University and Oberlin College.
Khouri is the newly formed consortium’s first speaker in a series of talks by intellectuals and promising young scholars from top research universities in the U.S. These speakers plan to address several themes: “Muslim Voices and Publics,” “Women in the Muslim World” and “Muslim Societies in Transition.”
The public has two opportunities to hear Khouri give two different talks: “Did we miss it? Journalism, Academic Research, and the Arab Uprisings,” at 5 p.m., Tuesday, October 4, in Franklin Hall at Kent State University, 550 Hilltop Dr. in Kent, and “Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the World’s Newest Species-Free, Democratic and Sovereign Arabs,” at noon, Wednesday, October 5, in Breen Center for the Performing Arts at St. Ignatius High School, 2008 West 30th in Cleveland.
Khouri, the director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, is the son of Nazarene journalist George Khouri. The elder Khouri was covering the United Nations, when his son was born in New York City in 1947. Khouri has Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizenship.
Following in his father’s career path, Khouri launched his journalism career as a reporter for the Daily Star in 1971. During the 1970s, he continued writing as a columnist for Middle East Sketch magazine and Middle East Money. He became editor-in-chief, a position he held two times, for the Jordan Times.
Cleveland-area higher education institutions—Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, Kent State University, and Oberlin College—began to see a need for educational forums to understand the complicated issues affecting the Middle East and to understand the cultural, economic, political and social influences that interplay in the dynamics of its problems and solutions.
The consortium leaders include: Pete W. Moore, department of political science, Case Western Reserve University; Neda A. Zawahri, department of political science Cleveland State University, Joshua Stacher, department of political science, Kent State University; and Zeinab Abul-Magd, department of history, Oberlin College.
With financial support from the Social Science Research Council, and in partnership with Civic Commons, Ideastream, and the City Club of Cleveland, NOUCMES will host Khouri and other speakers a series of public addresses and community discussion events entitled, “New Perspectives on Muslim and Middle Eastern Societies.”
Registration is required for both events at newperspectivesinkent.eventbrite.com for the Kent State talk, and the City Club of Cleveland Forum at St. Ignatius High School at newperspectivesatstignatius.eventbrite.com.