National Public Radio (NPR) Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos shared experiences and insights from covering the Arab Spring in a special lecture of the Hennebach Program in the Humanities at Colorado School of Mines, Jan. 17, 2013.
Amos’ lecture, “The Arab Spring and Islamism: Stories from the Syrian Frontline," is especially timely given the civil war in Syria and its potential impacts worldwide.
Amos also spoke at the University of Colorado Boulder on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. Her appearances were jointly sponsored by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado Journalism & Mass Communication program, and the Hennebach Program in the Humanities at Mines.
“The Arab Spring is the largest geopolitical event to affect the Middle East since the end of the colonial era some five decades ago. This popular movement succeeded in bringing about rapid regime change in some countries but has taken a more tortured path in Syria,” said Mirna Mattjik of the Hennebach program. “Were the Assad regime to fall, it would have significant impacts on many countries in the region and on America’s interests there. Deborah Amos provides insights and analysis from her firsthand encounters.”
Nabil Echchaibi, director of CU’s Muslims in the Mountain West Project, welcomed the collaboration with the School of Mines to provide the public with timely and authoritative new information about the situation in Syria.
“The road to free rule in Syria has proven arduous and deadly,” Echchaibi said. “The unfolding tragedy in Syria today is a real litmus test for the resilience of authoritarian rule in Arab lands, and what happens there might have even larger repercussions for politics and U.S. interests in the region.”
As a journalist, Amos has been covering the Middle East for decades and has published two books on the region. Among her many accolades, Amos was recognized with the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University (2009) and was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award by Washington State University (2010). Since 2010, Amos has served as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
