A Pulitzer Prize winner will lecture at Comenius University
Comenius University welcomes another significant personality, Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Nelson, who will give a lecture entitled “How can we write about a world which is totally changing?” The lecture will take place in the university’s Auditorium on Tuesday 25 October 2016.
Lecture theme:
How can we write about a world which is totally changing?
Climate change is not a future threat. Change is happening right now with higher temperatures, rising sea levels, droughts, and extreme weather already having global impacts. Deborah Nelson’s lecture will be on recognizing policies and positions which make this situation even worse. Reporters around the world have to be prepared to cover this topic in their articles if we wish to stop this slowly approaching catastrophe.
Lectures and discussions shall take place on the following dates:
25. 10. 2016 (Tuesday) at 4 pm in the Comenius University Auditorium, 6 Šafárik Square, Bratislava
27. 10. 2016 (Thursday) at 10 am in the Historical Auditorium at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, 2 Šrobárova Street, Košice
It is necessary to register for this event: www.uniba.sk/nelson
Deborah Nelson
Deborah Nelson is an Associate Professor of Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland. She started teaching at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in 2006. Before then she worked at the Los Angeles Times for five years as its Washington-based investigative editor.
In the past she has also written for the Washington Post, Seattle Times, and Chicago Sun-Times. Recently Nelson worked with others on a nationally acclaimed series of articles on rising sea levels for Reuters. For her work in the area of science and the environment, an area which she has been dedicated to for more than three decades, she has received formal recognition from the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society of Professional Journalists. In 1997 Nelson received the Pulitzer Prize for her work in publishing a series of articles on the widespread abuse of a United States government programme aimed at housing Native American families. She was also involved in projects which received the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and 2003. Her book, The War Behind Me (Basic Books, 2008), deals with war crimes committed by Americans serving in Vietnam and describes the lives of those soldiers who tried to stop the brutality of war.
Currently Nelson teaches university courses on investigative journalism, media law, and ethics. She lectured in Latvia on investigative journalism as a part of a programme run by the Fulbright Foundation and in China as a specialist working for the US-China Education Trust, which is a non-profit organization. As a part of a programme run by the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland and the Salzburg Global Seminar (a non-profit organization), she has helped initiate the creation of a global concept for international criminal law and the justice system for journalism schools in regions of Europe, Africa, and Asia which have recently faced conflict or are still confronting it. Deborah Nelson received a Doctor of Law degree from the DePaul University College of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from Northern Illinois University.
Project partners
“The aim of the Tatra banka Foundation is to provide grant programmes as well as inspirational moments and meetings with exceptional people. The Tatra banka Foundation is hosting a Pulitzer Prize winner for the sixth time as a part of its Personalities Personally programme. It is an occasion which offers university students in particular a unique experience to meet with winners of the most prestigious international awards. It is a great honour for us that the investigative journalist Deborah Nelson, the 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner, has accepted our invitation to speak in Slovakia. I am sure that the topic of her lecture, which deals with climate change, will initiate much discussion.”
Igor Vida, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Tatra banka Foundation
“One of the most important goals of our university is its continuing internationalization. To a significant degree, this endeavour is helped by meeting with personalities of a European and world calibre. I am therefore very glad that our students will have a unique opportunity to join in a discussion with the investigative journalist Deborah Nelson. She works at the University of Maryland, whose school of journalism, according to a number of scientometric indicators, is one of the top ten such schools in the world. I am sure that Deborah Nelson’s lecture and the enchantment of the experience itself will be an inspiration and perhaps a motivation for further study and career specialization for our students of journalism as well as for others. This will be the sixth time that a figure of world journalism who has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize will lecture at our university.”
Professor Karol Mičieta, Comenius University Rector
“People know a lot about the devastation of nature from the newspapers and television, but they remain rather indifferent to the things going on around them. Journalists are looking for ways to draw attention to the seriousness of the situation through regular stories. Deborah Nelson shows that climate change is not just some menace which a small group of people have dreamed up, but rather a whirling series of uncompromising events. With her articles, she is able to connect even with those people who would rather close their eyes to what is going on.”
Ján Pallo, member of the Board of Directors at the Petit Academy Foundation