Kent State University’s College of Arts and Sciences will co-host a lecture, “Covering the Egyptian Uprising,” by Sharif Abdel Kouddous on Nov. 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the Kent Student Center Kiva on the Kent Campus. Visitor parking is available in the Kent Student Center visitor lot on Summit Street. The night before, on Nov. 6, Kouddous will lead a conversation about the Middle East that is co-sponsored by the City Club of Cleveland at The Happy Dog, located at 5801 Detroit Ave. in Cleveland, at 7:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. He is a correspondent for the independent TV/radio news hour “Democracy Now!,” a regular contributor to The Nation magazine and a fellow at The Nation Institute. In addition to reporting from across Egypt, Kouddous has reported from Iraq, Syria, Gaza and Bahrain. He is a board member of the independent media collective 'Mosireen' in Egypt and the 2012 recipient of the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage of the Egyptian revolution.
The events are part of the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies (NOCMES) speaker series currently led by Joshua Stacher, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science at Kent State and author of “Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria.”
“Since its creation, NOCMES has been about bringing the Middle East to Northeast Ohio," Stacher said. “We want to make the events in the Middle East and the ways that they touch our lives here more tangible. Egypt has dominated the news Americans have gotten since the eruption of the Arab Spring. Sharif Abdel Kouddous lived it and covered it, so he brings a special perspective.”
NOCMES is a collection of area universities and community partners dedicated to the mission of public education with an aim to bring leading voices that research and work on the Middle East to Northeast Ohio. Its institutional members include Case Western Reserve University, Kent State, Oberlin College and Conservatory, Cleveland State University, John Carroll University and Baldwin-Wallace University. Its community partners include the City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland Council on World Affairs, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Civic Commons, CAIR-Ohio, Trinity Cathedral, Interact, and Case Western Reserve University’s Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.
Both events are co-sponsored by NOCMES, the Social Science Research Council, Cleveland Council on World Affairs and the City Club of Cleveland. For more information about these events and NOCMES, visit www.nocmes.org.
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Photo Caption:
Izzy Award-winning journalist, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered the Egyptian uprising, will speak on Nov. 7 as part of the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies speaker series, co-hosted by Kent State University.
Media Contacts:
Joshua Stacher, jstacher@kent.edu, 330-672-2060
Bob Burford, rburford@kent.edu, 330-672-8516