Language Rooms

Moderated by John Timpane of The Philadelphia Inquirer, this discussion will explore the state of the American Dream for Arab-Americans in our post-9/11 world.  Panelists will include Toufic El Rassi, author of the graphic novel/memoir Arab in America, Mustapha Tlili, founder and director of NYU’s Center for Dialogues, and Dr. James Zogby, founder and President of the Arab-American Institute.  Free for all Subscribers and Language Rooms ticket holders, otherwise, $10.  For tickets, please call the Box Office at 215.546.7824 or email tickets@wilmatheater.org.

Toufic El Rassi is a college lecturer in history and political science. He is also a writer and a graphic novelist and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs. His book Arab in America is now available on Amazon.com. He currently lives on the north side of Chicago.

Sorbonne-educated, Mustapha Tlili is the Founder and Director of the Center for Dialogues, a research scholar at New York University, and Senior Fellow at its Remarque Institute.  Previously, Professor Tlili taught at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and was a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute of New School University.  He is a former senior U.N. official, having served as Director for Communications Policy in the United Nations Department of Public Information, Director of the U.N. Information Center for France, located in Paris, and Chief of the Namibia, Anti-Apartheid, Palestine and Decolonization programs in the same department.  He also served from 2005 to 2006 as Advisor to the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations, set up by the Secretary General, and from 2006 to 2008 on the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement, together with Madeleine Albright, Dennis Ross, Richard Armitage, and other American political and cultural leaders.  The Group produced its milestone report, “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World,” which has been considered by the U.S. Senate and the White House.  An established novelist, Mustapha Tlili is a Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters.  He is also a member of Human Rights Watch’s Advisory Committee for the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr. James Zogby is the founder and President of the Arab-American Institute. Since 1992, Zogby has written a weekly column on American politics for major Arab newspapers, Washington Watch, which is published in 14 Arab and South Asian countries. He has authored several books, including What Ethnic Americans Really Think and What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Concerns. Zogby also serves on the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Committee and on the national advisory board of the American Civil Liberties Union and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Zogby received a Distinguished Public Service Award from the U. S. Department of State "in recognition of outstanding contributions to national and international affairs" from the Secretary's Open Forum. In 1995, Le Moyne College awarded Zogby an honorary doctor of laws degree. He attended Le Moyne College in Syracuse New York where he graduated in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in comparative religions from Temple University in 1975. He studied at Princeton University in 1976 as a National Endowment for the Humanities post-doctoral fellow. He is also the brother of pollster John Zogby--who founded Zogby International.