Haifa Zangana

Last week, our department had the good fortune to host Haifa Zangana, a London-based Iraqi writer and activist, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor. She is a novelist (Women on a Journey among others) and recently the author of an outstanding political historical memoir which I recently read (City of Windows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance). She is also an important and courageous public intellectual, particularly in the Arab-speaking world, and a lovely person who it was a privilege to meet. Her three talks at the university addressed the struggles of women under the US occupation. I have to read a stack of essays about her lectures from my students, who, to their credit, came out in impressive numbers. You can read more about her and her visit in Daily News Egypt.