Wayne State University's Center for the Study of Citizenship is hosting several prominent international speakers, including Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shirin Ebadi, as part of its Global Imaginaries/Individual Realities lecture series.
Ebadi, a former judge and founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, became the first Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. On April 7, she will deliver a free public lecture discussing her work in support of democracy, human rights, art and justice.
A moderated discussion and Q&A with Ebadi and Shirin Neshat, an Iranian visual artist whose work is the subject of a DIA exhibition, follow the lecture.
"The Global Imaginaries series includes lectures that establish a platform for artists and their communities to enter into a wider conversation about socially engaged art," said Center for the Study of Citizenship Director and History Chair Marc Kruman.
Additional Global Imaginaries series speakers include:
- April 10, Esther Shalev-Gerz
- April 24, Trenton Doyle Hancock
Most lectures are at 7 p.m. in the DIA's Detroit Film Theatre Auditorium, with the exception of Ebadi's lecture, which begins at 5:30 p.m.
In addition to the Global Imaginaries series, the Center will host a special lecture with WSU’s Saeed Khan and Seán McLoughlin, a UK-based researcher whose work focuses on anthropological approaches to the Pakistani and Kashmiri heritage Muslim presence in Britain. He has published more than 20 journal articles, book chapters and reports on issues concerning religion and ethnicity, diaspora and identity.
The McLoughlin/Khan lecture is scheduled 6-7:30 p.m. in the Community Room on the 3rd floor of the UGL.