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Oct. 4, 2012 — Egyptian revolutionary, political activist and women’s rights advocate Dalia Ziada will give a lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, in Ford Chapel at Allegheny College. The lecture, “Egypt and the Arab Spring,” is free and open to the public.

Newsweek named Ziada one of the “100 Most Influential Women” in 2011 and again in 2012. CNN recognized her as one of the Arab world’s eight agents of change in 2012, and she was selected by the Daily Beast in 2011 as one of the world’s 17 bravest bloggers. She received the Tufts University Presidential Award for civil work in 2011 and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Journalist Award in 2010. Time magazine named her a women’s rights champion in 2009.

Ziada is executive director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo, one of the oldest and biggest nongovernmental organizations advocating for human rights and civil freedoms in Egypt and the Arab world.

Ziada is at Allegheny October 10-15 as an instructor for an International Studies short course on Egypt and the Arab Spring. She will also be attending other classes and talking with students during her stay at Allegheny.

“Dalia Ziada wears several hats,” notes International Studies program director Shannan Mattiace. “She ran for a parliamentary spot last year; she is a vocal advocate for women’s rights in Egypt; she has written several influential books and is a prolific blogger. And she recently oversaw some 7,000 electoral observers during Egypt’s presidential election. Her visit to Allegheny is a remarkable opportunity for our students – and the greater community – to learn more about the Arab Spring from someone who is actively involved in shaping events in the Arab world.”

The author of “A Modern Narrative for Muslim Women in the Middle East: Forging a New Future,” a guidebook for policymakers in the Middle East and the U.S. on how to advocate for women’s rights, Ziada is also a translator. In 2007 she translated
“The Montgomery Story,” a comic book from the 1960s about Martin Luther King Jr., to inspire young activists in the Middle East to adopt nonviolent strategies in their struggle for civil rights. The Washington Post credited Ziada’s translation of “The Montgomery Story” with helping to inspire the Egyptian nonviolent revolution.

Ziada holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

A link to her Twitter feed can be found at https://fr.twitter.com/daliaziada.