Azar Nafisi lecture Sept. 20, tickets available today

Human rights and political expert and best-selling author Azar Nafisi will present the 11th annual Governor's Lecture in the Humanities and the next lecture in the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her address is 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, 12th and R streets in Lincoln.

All Thompson Forum lectures are free and open to the public, but because of the anticipated high level of interest in this event, free reserved-seat tickets will be distributed.

Azar Nafisi, author of the national bestseller "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books," is the director of the Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics. She held a fellowship from Oxford and taught English literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" electrified its readers with a compassionate and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. Translated into 32 languages and winner of many literary awards, the book was on The New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks.

Nafisi conducted workshops in Iran for women students on the relationship between culture and human rights. The material culled from these workshops formed the basis of a new human rights education curriculum. She has lectured and written extensively in English and Persian on the political implications of literature and culture, as well as the human rights of Iranian women and girls and the important role they play in the process of change for pluralism and an open society in Iran. She has been consulted on issues related to Iran and human rights both by policy makers and various human rights organizations in the United States and elsewhere.

Tickets for this lecture will be distributed in person only at the Lied Ticket Office (no Internet orders), at the shopping concierge center at Westfield Gateway and at the service desk at the Nebraska Union. Numbers will be limited to two tickets per person. Ticketing questions can be directed to the Lied Ticket Office, 472-4747.

Doors for the Nafisi lecture will open at 6:30 p.m., and ticket holders must be seated by 7:10 p.m., at which time non-ticket holders will be admitted to any empty seats. No cameras, backpacks, bags or briefcases will be allowed at the Lied Center during the lecture.

Additionally, for those unable to obtain seating at the Lied, an overflow viewing area will be set up at the UNL Visitors Center. The lecture will be broadcast live on the UNL Web site (www.unl.edu), Lincoln cable channel 21, UNL campus TV channel 8, NEBSAT 102 and KRNU radio station (90.3 FM). Other lecturers in the forum's 19th season are statesman George McGovern on Nov. 9, author and economist Clyde Prestowitz Feb. 8, and public health expert and best-selling author Sherwin Nuland March 22. The forum's 2006-07 theme is "Challenges and Change."

For 19 years, the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues has brought a diversity of viewpoints on international and public policy issues to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the citizens of Nebraska to promote understanding and to encourage debate. The forum seeks out forceful speakers who are committed to the issues they address, seeking balance over the range of its programs rather than in each presentation. The forum does not endorse the views of the individual speakers nor limit their freedom to express their points of view. Nafisi's lecture is co-sponsored by the Nebraska Humanities Council and the University of Nebraska.

The Thompson Forum is a cooperative project of the Cooper Foundation, the Lied Center and UNL. It has a mission of promoting better understanding of world events and issues to all Nebraskans. In 1990, the series was named in honor of E.N. "Jack" Thompson (1913-2002), a 1933 graduate of the University of Nebraska, who served as president of the Cooper Foundation from 1964 to 1990 and as its chairman from 1990 until his death.

More information about the Thompson Forum is on-line at http://www.unl.edu/unlpub/special/thompsonforum.

Contact: Annette Wetzel, University Communications, (402) 472-8524; Kelly Bartling, University Communications, (402) 472-2059, Jane Renner Hood, Nebraska Humanities Council, (402) 474-2131 ext. 107