Brigham Young University’s David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies will host two Global Focus Series lectures during the week of Oct. 19-23. Admission is free, and the public is welcome to attend.
• On Monday, Oct. 19, His Excellency Balázs Bokor, Hungarian consul general in Los Angeles, will be addressing “The 20th Anniversary of the Opening of the Iron Curtain” at 2 p.m. in 238 Herald R. Clark Building.
A native of Budapest, Bokor was appointed consul general in 2007 following a long career in the Foreign Service that began in 1981 as an attaché in the Hungarian embassy in Aden, Yemen. As a diplomat, he has also served in Beirut, Amman, Nicosia and Damascus. Previously, Bokor served as the deputy director general, and later as director general, for the Department of Middle East and Africa and as advisor for the Department of Policy Planning in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Bokor holds master’s degrees from Moscow State University of International Relation and Budapest University of Economics.
• On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Graham Robb, British author, will be presenting “Persecution and French National Identity” at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark Building.
Robb has published widely in French literature and history. He is an accomplished writer with many awards for his books, including the “Discovery of France,” based in part on 14.000 miles of cycling in France, was awarded the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. He has also been awarded for his biography “Victor Hugo,” winner of the 1997 Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Award and Whitbread Biography Prize, and his “Rimbaud,” winner of the 2000 Enid McLeod Literature Prize. Robb graduated from Oxford University with first-class honors in French and German. He received a doctoral degree from Vanderbilt University, after which he held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Exeter College.
For more information on events sponsored by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, see the calendar online at kennedy.byu.edu.
For more information about the lectures, contact Lee Simons at (801) 422-2652.
Writer: Ricardo Castro
