Kabul Scholar to Address
“What Hope for Afghanistan”

October 28, 2009

By Henry DeVries

Athanasios Moulakis

Athanasios Moulakis, acting president and professor of government at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, will speak on “What Hope for Afghanistan” at 7 pm Tuesday, December 8 at the UC San Diego Faculty Club. The event is free and open to the public with no tickets or reservations required.

Moulakis is a distinguished scholar who has taught at several universities in Europe and the U.S., including a visiting appointment at UC San Diego.

The Kabul university Moulakis is building aims to help Afghans help themselves by gaining the tools of science, humanistic learning, and public administration.  In that capacity, he has had a unique opportunity not only to experience life in this war-torn society but also to gain an insight into the varied perceptions on the country’s problems and prospects held by various Afghan factions, their neighbors in Iraq and Pakistan, and Americans and other Westerners. 

Professor Moulakis and UC San Diego Professor Emeritus Sandy Lakoff, who will serve as interlocutor, will reflect on those problems and prospects and the hard choices they pose for American foreign policy.

Please enter campus at the North Torrey Pines and Muir College Drive entrance.

Parking is $4 after 4:30 pm.

The lecture is presented by the Helen Edison Lecture Series. In accordance with a major gift from a late philanthropist, the Helen Edison Lecture Series presents ongoing free public lectures on issues that advance humanitarian purposes and objectives. Attended annually by thousands, speakers include former Vice President Al Gore,  Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, former secretary of defense Robert McNamara, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Nobel Prize in Literature winner Toni Morrison and double Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof, just to name a few.

For additional information call Edie Munk, ’78, director of the UC San Diego Extension Helen Edison Lecture Series at (858) 822-0510, or email emunk@ucsd.edu  or visit http://helenedison.ucsd.edu.

Media Contact: Henry DeVries 858-534-9955 or 619-540-3031 (after hours) or hdevries@ucsd.edu