Press Release

Contact: Debra Humphreys
Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
202-387-3760 ext. 422
Humphreys@aacu.org

Association of American Colleges and Universities Presents 2005 Frederic W. Ness Book Award to Azar Nafisi for Reading Lolita in Tehran

Washington, DC—January 27, 2005—The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) presented its prestigious Frederic W. Ness Book Award on January 27, 2005, to writer Azar Nafisi at the Association's Annual Meeting in San Francisco for her acclaimed book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. The award is given for the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education. Nafisi's 2003 memoir was selected by a panel of educational leaders chaired by AAC&U board member Jack Noonan, president emeritus of Bloomfield College. The first Ness award was presented in 1980. Nafisi's acclaimed memoir chronicles the two years in the 1990s when Nafisi taught Western novels disapproved of by the Iranian regime to a group of female students in her home. The book has been called by the editors of The Middle East Quarterly "a riveting story of hope, disillusionment, and hope rekindled."

"Nafisi's book reminds those of us who might take it for granted of the power of literature as a source of freedom and an essential avenue to a greater appreciation of our shared humanity," said John Noonan, who presented the 2005 award at the meeting. "The Ness Book Award reviewers were unanimous in our judgment that Reading Lolita in Tehran demonstrates vividly the power of liberal education to change lives and advance our students' commitments to human rights and our shared future."

"It is a great privilege and pleasure to accept this award from those among whom I feel so much at home, in the true sense of the word," said Nafisi. "For if I were to choose a home, it would be the one you have already chosen: the Republic of Imagination where there are no boundaries defined by geography, nationality, religion, race, gender, or class, where its citizens' only identity papers are their commitment to all individuals' right to freedom of choice and expression, no matter from which part of the world they come or what language they speak."

Nafisi also remarked, "I share this award with my students in Iran, without whom this book would never have existed. Rather than giving in to the tyranny imposed upon them, they learned and also taught me how to discover a new freedom and reconnect to the world through the universal language of literature."

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, AAC&U issued a statement noting, in part, that one role that higher education plays in our society is to "turn a beacon on the qualities and commitments that make our democracy inspiring and resilient. The academy both embodies and imparts democracy's finest principles of intellectual freedom, reasoned inquiry, civil liberties, openness to a full range of views and experiences, and the determination to comprehend issues in all their complexity." AAC&U is particularly pleased to honor Azar Nafisi's work this year because of how it demonstrates the power of these principles at this challenging time in our nation's history. As she, herself, noted in a recent article in The Washington Post, "now--more than ever--we need the courage and integrity, the faith, vision and dreams that . . . books [of great literature] instilled in us. Is this not a good time to worry . . . about what will happen if a country loses its poetry and soul?"

This book award was established by AAC&U in 1979 to honor AAC&U's president emeritus, Frederic W. Ness. Recent award winners have included Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education by Martha Nussbaum, Idealism and Liberal Education by James O. Freedman, and Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg.

Members of the 2005 Ness Book Award committee included: Jack Noonan, president emeritus, Bloomfield College; Sanford J. Unger, president, Goucher College; Rosemary DePaulo, chancellor, University of North Carolina-Wilmington; and Yolanda Moses, vice provost, conflict resolution, University of California, Riverside.

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Since its founding in 1915, AAC&U's membership has grown to more than 1,000 accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs, and publications can be found at www.aacu.org.