The Middle East Center in cooperation with the American Tunisian Association presents:

"The Arab Spring: The Tunisian Experiment"

Speaker: Tarek Kahlaoui, Ruters University, General Director of the Tunisian Institute of Strategic Studies

Tarek Kahlaoui was a leading figure in the student movement in Tunisia in the 1990’s, prior to completing his Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Since 2008, has has served as an assistant professor of Islamic Art at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Professor Kahlaoui was active in the anti-censorship movement before the fall of the Ben Ali regime. In the summer of 2011, Professor Kahlaoui founded the Dean Muhammad Chakroun Center for Research and Studies in Tunisia, a think tank associated with CPR, the Tunisian political party with the Moncef Marzouki, president of the Tunisia Republic. Professor Kahlaoui currently serves as General Director of the Tunisian Institute of Strategic Studies, a presidential institution serving as an advisory board to the President and the government. He is also a member of the political bureau of the CPR, one of the three parties of the governing coalition in Tunisia.