Why Does Darfur Matter?

Eric Reeves
professor, Smith College, Northampton

Abdelbagy Abushanab
president, Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Newark

Lecture and discussion open to the public

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 7 PM. Multi-Purpose Room, first floor

University of Connecticut at Stamford
Washington Blvd and Broad Street
Stamford, CT 06901-2315

In September 2004, U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “genocide has been committed” in the Darfur region of Southern Sudan. He documented a “consistent and widespread” pattern of killings, rapes and other atrocities. How did this conflict start? Why are the atrocities continuing? How are the people of Darfur responding? What can be done to end the atrocities?

Eric Reeves, professor of English, has spent the last six years researching Sudan. His website, with his articles and congressional testimony on Sudan, is widely cited by journalists, foreign affairs scholars and human rights activists. http://www.sudanreeves.org

Abdelbagy Abushanab, is president of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Newark, NJ
http://www.darfurrehab.org. Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Inc. (DRP) is a United States based NGO, composed of individuals from the Darfur region, which advocates and educates on the situation in Darfur. Mr. Abushanab regularly appears at universities and public programs to speak on Darfur. In September 2005, the DRP hosted a discussion among fact-finders who returned from Chad and Darfurian leaders from across the United States at Seton Hall University.

co-sponsored by:
Stamford/Greenwich/Darien Darfur Support Committee, University of Connecticut Program Fund, Amnesty International USA, Group 13, and Stamford/Greenwich Peace Action

On Monday, November 14th, UConn Stamford, the Stamford Chamber of
Commerce, and The Advocate newspaper are sponsoring a panel to discuss:
“Preparing for Natural Disasters: The City of Stamford in Emergency”.

The program will be held at UConn Stamford in the General Re Auditorium
from 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm.

The panelists will include City of Stamford public officials responsible
for security and public health as well as Walter Young, Commander of the
UConn Stamford Police. Professor Joel Blatt will moderate the
discussion.

All faculty, staff, students and community members are welcome to
attend.

On Wednesday, November 30th, Professor Tom Deans, the new director of the University Writing Center, will be visiting from Storrs.  He will give an interactive workshop entitled “Writing as Re-Writing: Making Revision Matter for Students.” This workshop is part of a series of programs Professor Deans has been presenting as part of the new General Education curriculum. 

The event will be held in MPR Room from 12:00-1:30.  Lunch will be provided. 

Please RSVP to celeste.baran@uconn.edu no later than November 18th.

TUESDAY, November 15th at 6:00 PM, we will be holding our annual Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner in the A1 auditorium.  All students, faculty, and members of the community are encouraged to attend.  If you are able, please contact SGA about bringing a dish that will serve about 8 to 10 people.  Entertainment will consist of karaoke open to all in attendance.  A 50 DOLLAR Prize will be awarded for best entrée and best dessert.

November 2
Creative Sustenance, Stamford :

A reading by Ira Joe Fisher, Tim Parrish & Pit Menousek Pinegar
7:00 pm, Schreiber Reading Room, UConn Stamford

**Audience members are asked to make a donation or bring canned goods to this benefit event.**

Ira Joe Fisher’s poetry has appeared in Poetry New York, The Alembic, The New York Quarterly, Entelechy International, Diner, Ridgefield Magazine and the anthology Confrontation.

His book-length collection, Some Holy Weight in the Village Air, will be published by Athanata Press in 2006. Fisher appears weekly on the CBS Television Network’s Saturday Early Show, and has won two Emmys for television writing.

Tim Parrish is the author of the story collection, Red Stick Men.
Director of the Creative Writing Program at Southern Connecticut State University, his awards include a 2001 Walter E. Dakin Fellowship at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a 2001 Connecticut Arts Fellowship.
Parrish was nominated by Tim O’Brien as one of the Best New American Voices 2002.

Pit Menousek Pinegar is the author of three collections of poetry: Nine Years between Two Poems, The Possibilities of Empty Space, and The Physics of Transmigration, published by Antrim House and nominated for a
2006 Pulitzer Prize. She has received an artist fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on The Arts and the Governor’s Distinguished Advocate of the Arts Award.