Prominent Beirut-based Journalist Rami Khouri to Speak at SDSU Oct. 26

Lecture Will Address Major Issues in Region

Gina Speciale
SDSU Marketing & Communications
Tel: (619) 594-4563 office, (619) 813-3581 cell
speciale@mail.sdsu.edu

Rami Khouri

SAN DIEGO (Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006) - Beirut-based journalist Rami Khouri, who has been on the ground in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine reporting on the major issues affecting the Middle East, will talk about his experience in a lecture at San Diego State University on Thursday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. 

His speech, “The United States and the Middle East: A View from the Arab World”, will look at all of the recent events in the region and their links to the United States.
 
“Mr. Khouri has decades of experience as a journalist,” said Ghada Osman, director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies. “His voice and viewpoint is one that we badly need to hear during these times of crisis.  Many students don’t fully realize that where you live affects what you hear, so Khouri will give students a unique look at the Arab world that is different from the ‘American-centered’ lens.”

His visit to SDSU will be Khouri’s only trip to southern California during his two-month stay in the U.S.  He is based at Stanford University as a visiting fellow for the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Co-sponsored by SDSU’s Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies, Khouri’s lecture is part of the Fred J. Hansen Distinguished Lecture Series, which has hosted other prominent journalists and political representatives from around the world.

Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut, Lebanon-based newspaper The Daily Star.  The publication is the largest English-language newspaper published throughout the Middle East in partnership with the International Herald Tribune.  He also authors the internationally syndicated weekly political column, “A View from the Arab World”, which focuses on the broad range of roles played by the Middle East, its culture, politics and religion worldwide.

Educated in both the Middle East and the United States, Khouri returned to his homeland 35 years ago and now resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He has hosted “Encounter,” a weekly current affairs talk show on Jordan Television, and “Jordan Ancient Cultures,” a weekly archaeology program on Radio Jordan.

Khouri was editor-in-chief of The Jordan Times for seven years, writing from Amman for leading international publications, including The Financial Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. For 18 years he was general manager of Al Kutba Publishers in Amman, and continues to be a consultant to the Jordanian tourism ministry on biblical archaeological sites.

He is a Senior Associate at the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem. Khouri has served as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and was appointed a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.

The Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies, founded in 2000, has a threefold mission: to develop a rich state of the art curriculum in Islamic and Arabic Studies at SDSU, to organize outreach activities and programs that help educate the San Diego community at large on Islamic and Arabic subjects, and to engage in scholarly research on these topics in the national and international arenas.

The Fred J. Hansen Institute for World Peace promotes peaceful relations among adversary nations through cooperation on programs of mutual benefit and interest.  The Institute was founded by a donation from the trust of Fred J. Hansen in 1979.  Hansen came to the U.S. from Denmark at the age of ten.  After settling in the San Diego area, he was one of the first to develop a major avocado orchard in the region.  His foreign travel convinced Hansen that if adversary nations could be encouraged to work together on projects of mutual benefit, this activity could help heal their differences. Hansen designated a portion of his estate to support this conviction. Since then, the Hansen Institute has received annual grants, including a one-time grant in 1997 to establish the Fred J. Hansen Chair for Peace Studies at SDSU.

San Diego State University is the oldest and largest higher education institution in the San Diego region. Since it was founded in 1897, the university has grown to offer bachelor’s degrees in 81 areas, master’s degrees in 72 areas and doctorates in 16 areas. SDSU’s nearly 34,000 students participate in an academic curriculum distinguished by direct contact with faculty and an increasing international emphasis that prepares them for a global future. For more information, visit www.sdsu.edu.

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