Pollster to discuss findings of survey on Arab attitudes at Oct. 27 Baker Institute lecture

CONTACT: Franz Brotzen
PHONE: 713-348-6775
EMAIL: franz.brotzen@rice.edu

Pollster to discuss findings of survey on Arab attitudes at Oct. 27 Baker Institute lecture

U.S. attitudes toward the Arab world are recounted constantly in the domestic news media, but what do Arabs think about the United States? James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute and a senior adviser with the polling firm Zogby International, will discuss his book ”Arab Voices: What They are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters” Oct. 27 at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. in Baker Hall’s Doré Commons on the Rice campus, 6100 Main St. For directions, go to http://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/media_directions.cfm.

Zogby’s book explains the results of the 2009-2010 Zogby International polls conducted across a number of Arab countries covering Arab opinions about the U.S. and the Middle East. Drawing from this data, Zogby contests widely held myths about the Arab world, including the uniform existence of a backward and aggressive Arab mindset; the notion of Arabs as consumed by hatred of the West; and the idea that Arabs are blinded by violent religious teachings.

Zogby graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. He received a Ph.D. in comparative religions from Temple University and studied at Princeton University as a National Endowment for Humanities postdoctoral fellow.

Zogby co-founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1980 and served as its executive director until 1984. He writes a weekly column that runs more than a dozen Arab and South Asian newspapers and hosts a weekly call-in discussion program on Abu Dhabi television. He is the author of several other books, including “What Ethnic Americans Really Think” and “What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Concerns.”

Members of the news media who want to attend should RSVP to Franz Brotzen at franz.brotzen@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.