Global Reflections on Afghanistan: A Roundtable Discussion

banner

In September 2021, the longest war in U.S. history came to an end as American military forces withdrew from Afghanistan. Join a panel of expert voices on Afghanistan as they reflect on the two decades of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, the chaotic end to the U.S. military mission, and the global context of these events. Join a panel of expert voices on Afghanistan for a roundtable discussion on two decades of US military involvement and Afghanistan's future.

Note: This event will take place in-person with limited capacity, but is accessible via live-stream. Please reserve the appropriate ticket. Click to register here.

Location:
David Rubenstein Forum at the University of Chicago
1201 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Anand Gopal is a journalist covering the Middle East, and a scholar who studies political violence. His reporting on Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. He is the author of “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes,” which won the Ridenhour Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award. He has won the George Polk Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the National Magazine Award for his reporting from Iraq.

Barnett R. Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation, where he previously directed the Afghanistan Pakistan Regional Program. From 2009-2013, Rubin was the Senior Adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State. In 2001, Rubin served as special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement. He subsequently advised the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.

May Jeong is an award-winning magazine writer and investigative reporter. She is best known for her months-long investigation into the MSF hospital bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan for The Intercept. This won her the 2017 South Asian Journalists Association’s Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Report on South Asia, as well as the Prix Bayeux Calvados Award for War Correspondents in the Young Reporter category. Her reporting for The Intercept, New York Times, London Review of Books, Harper’s, Financial Times, and In These Times has won the Society of Business Editors and Writers’ Award and the One World Media New Voice Award.

M. Nazif Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Asian and Middle East Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for International Scholars. He is the author of “Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War” (2002) and editor of “Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives” (2018) and “Modern Afghanistan: The Impact of 40 Years of War” (2018)

Thomas Barfield is a social anthropologist who conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork among pastoral nomads in northern Afghanistan. He is the author of, “Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History” (2010), a book that received an outstanding title award for American Library Association in 2011. He has served as President of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies since 2005.

Gil Stein is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in the UChicago Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and at the Oriental Institute. He also serves as Director of the Chicago Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation. His research investigates the development of the earliest urbanized states in the Near East, ancient economies, the archaeology of colonialism, inter-regional interaction, zooarchaeology, and the preservation of cultural heritage. He conducts cultural heritage preservation projects in Afghanistan and Central Asia (Uzbekistan).

Poster