Ongoing efforts to preserve Cuba’s written cultural heritage will be the subject of a lecture Tuesday, March 26, in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

The Director of the National Library of Cuba, Dr. Eduardo Torres Cuevas, will provide an overview of the Library’s collections and innovative user services.

The 5:30 p.m. event in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room is free and open to the public.

Torres Cuevas is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Unión Nacional de Historiadores de Cuba, the Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba, and the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, and is the current president of the Cuban Academy of History.

The evening is sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA).

Download event flier (pdf)

Nowruz Persian New Year: Celebrating the Persian Collection at UNC
Monday, March 18, 2013
5:45 – 8:30 p.m.
Wilson Special Collections Library
Free and open to the public
Information: Liza Terll, Friends of the Library, (919) 548-1203

Persian food, music, and dance will be part of a celebration of Persian library collections at UNC on March 18.

The festivities will take place in the Wilson Special Collections Library. The event coincides with Nowruz, the Persian New Year that is traditionally a time of joy and celebration.

The program will begin at 5:45 p.m. with a reception catered by Cilantro Restaurant in Durham. Persian materials from the UNC Libraries will be on view during the reception and calligrapher Majid Roohafza will demonstrate his craft. A Haft Sin table, a traditional Nowruz setting of seven items beginning with the Persian letter “s,” will also be on view, with an explanation of the items and their significance.

The program will begin at 6:30 p.m., as follows:

• Remarks  by UNC professor Carl Ernst and members of the local Persian community who have helped to build collections of Persian library materials at UNC;
• Musical interlude with Behnam Zamanian and Shahram Mazhari;
• Keynote address: “Teaching Persian Poetry at UNC” by UNC professor Omid Safi;
• Student music and dance performances by members of the UNC Persian Cultural Society;
• Tea and sweets by Jahan International Market of Chapel Hill

Two recent endowments, the Jarrahi Family Endowment and the Pars Endowment, have built the Library’s capacity over the past year to purchase Persian language and cultural materials in support of one of the University’s fastest growing areas of study.

For more information about the Library’s Persian Studies collection and ways to support it, contact Mohamed Hamed, Middle East and African Studies librarian, at mseoud@email.unc.edu, (919) 843-3859, or Emily Silverman, associate director of library development, at essilver@email.unc.edu, (919) 962-3437. Further information about the Persian Studies program at UNC is available at http://persian.unc.edu.