CHIASMOS: The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source [audio]

A talk by New York Times journalist Neil MacFarquhar. His book, "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday" reveals a cross-section of unsung, dynamic men and women pioneering political and social change. There is the Kuwaiti sex therapist in a leather suit with matching red headscarf, and the Syrian engineer advocating a less political interpretation of the Koran. MacFarquhar interacts with Arabs and Iranians in their every day lives, removed from the violence we see constantly, yet wrestling with the region's future. Cosponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. From the World Beyond the Headlines lecture series.

A talk by Bhavani Raman, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University. From the South Asia Seminar.

Susanna Hecht, Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, delivers a lecture entitled, "Tropicality, Tropicalism: Forest Resurgence and the Politics of Latin American Conservation"

Carlos Fernando Chamorro is the son of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor of the independent daily La Prensa who was assassinated during the Somoza dictatorship. Chamorro is among the nation's most respected TV journalists, and a leading voice for press freedom and the protection of independent journalism in Nicaragua.

A talk by professor and author David Bosco. From the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War, the UN Security Council has stood at the heart of global politics. Part public theater, part smoke-filled backroom, the Council has enjoyed notable successes and suffered ignominious failures, but it has always provided a space for the five great powers to sit down together. Five to Rule Them All tells the inside story of this remarkable diplomatic creation. Drawing on extensive research, including dozens of interviews with serving and former ambassadors on the Council, the book chronicles political battles and personality clashes as it opens the closed doors of its meeting room. What emerges here is a revealing portrait of the most powerful diplomatic body in the world. From the World Beyond the Headlines lecture series.

A talk by David Shulman, Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies, Department of Comparative Religion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From the South Asia Seminar.

Rafael Hernández is the editor of Temas, the leading Cuban magazine in the social sciences and the humanities, which is renowned for its contribution to intellectual controversy on the island. Hernández addresses Cuba's unique social diversity and the emergence of growing inequality that accompanied and has followed the crisis of the 1990s.

A talk by Richard Eaton, University of Arizona. From the South Asia Seminar.

A talk by C.S. Lakshmi, founder and Director of Sound & Picture Archive for Research on Women (SPARROW) in Mumbai.

A talk by South African author and journalist Mark Gevisser.

Mark Gevisser is currently The Nation's Southern African correspondent. In South Africa, his work has appeared in the Mail & Guardian, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday Times and many magazines and periodicals. Internationally, he has written widely on South African politics, culture and society, in publications ranging from Vogue and the New York Times to Foreign Affairs and Art in America.

Read Mark Gevisser's featured CIS article connecting Barack Obama's election and the legacy of liberation in South Africa...

From the World Beyond the Headlines lecture series. Cosponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT), the Political Science Department, the African Studies Workshop, and the Human Rights Program.