Azar Nafisi to Speak at U of Hartford

I have not actually read Reading Lolita in Tehran, but it’s on my shelf and I’ve heard raves about it. When she had to cancel last year, I know that some students were very disappointed. Azar Nafisi will be at the University of Hartford on Tuesday September 9th. The following is the press release from the UH website:

The University will present a talk by highly acclaimed author Azar Nafisi on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Lincoln Theater.

Nafisi’s talk, which is part of the University’s Rogow Distinguished Visiting Lecturers Program, is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. To order tickets, call the University of Hartford box office at 860.768.4228 or 800.274.8587.

Nafisi’s talk was originally slated to take place last March, but was rescheduled due to illness. (Tickets for the March date will not be accepted.)

Nafisi is best known for her national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which presents an electrifying and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution. Part memoir and part literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran (Random House, 2003) is a poignant account of one Iranian professor’s efforts to introduce Western literature to her female students—a practice forbidden by religious fundamentalists in Iran.

Her new book, Things I’ve Been Silent About, will be published by Random House later this year.

Nafisi is director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is also a professor of aesthetics, culture and literature. Before her return to the United States in 1997, Nafisi taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai.

As honorary chairman of the 2005 “One Book for Greater Hartford” program, University of Hartford President Walter Harrison led a discussion group for Reading Lolita in Tehran at the Hartford Public Library. President Harrison described the novel as a “wonderful celebration of the liberating power of literature.”

This Rogow Lecture is offered in partnership with the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund (WELFund), a legacy of Hartford College for Women, which offers grants to faculty, staff, and students of the University of Hartford. Since its founding in 2006, the WELFund has supported 32 projects aimed at helping shape the future for women and girls.