Discussion: The Middle East: Trauma, Truths, & Twitter

Discussion: The Middle East: Trauma, Truths, & Twitter

Thursday Jan 24, 2013
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

THE POWERHOUSE ARENA [Dumbo]
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201



 

For more information, please call 718.666.3049
RSVP appreciated: RSVP@powerHouseArena.com

Authors Rory O’Connor (Friends, Followers and the Future) and Dr. Rahimeh Andalibian (The Rose Hotel) examine the influence of social media on common myths and misconceptions about the Middle East, its peoples and its cultures, and the jointly-created, entrenched story lines perpetuated by media on both sides of a yawning divide.


Should we fear Islam? Was the Arab Spring the result of a “Twitter Revolution?” Is the root of conflict between the Western World and the Middle East really a “clash of civilizations?”

With a true-life account told through The Rose Hotel, Dr. Rahimeh Andalibian demonstrates decades of damage caused by trauma and war on individuals and families. Together with Rory O’Connor – author of Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media – the authors will examine the influence of social media on common myths and misconceptions about the Middle East, its peoples and its cultures, and the jointly-created, entrenched story lines perpetuated by media on both sides of a yawning divide.

About the speakers:

Rory O’Connor is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker whose work centers on the nexus of media and politics. Co-founder and president of the international media firm Globalvision, Inc, his films and television programs have aired on PBS, BBC, NHK, CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. He recently published third critically acclaimed book, How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media. 

Dr. Rahimeh Andalibian is a clinical psychologist, speaker, and retreat/workshop leader with a practice in Los Angeles and New York. She specializes in the use of storytelling and the arts to bring about healing and transformation. She is the author of the upcoming book, The Rose Hotel which recounts the true-life-story of her family and their fight to strive after their 16-year-old son is executed in the brutal and bloody chaos of the Iranian Revolution of l979. In our post-9/11 world where religious extremism, the threat of terrorist attacks and nuclear power guide our understanding of the Middle East and Iran, The Rose Hotel reveals the human face of war and conflict by inviting us into the peaceful intimacy of an Iranian family until they fell from grace in the Khomeini regime, and were uprooted, first to London, and finally to California, where they struggled to adjust to a new host culture.


For more information, please contact
Julie Buntin
julie@powerhousearena.com
powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
tel: 212-604-9074 x109

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