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PORTLAND, Maine

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges to speak on the 'Empire of Illusion' Feb. 18th

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, will be talking on "Empire of Illusion" on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 at 6 p.m. in the WCHP Lecture Hall on the University of New England's Portland Campus.

The lecture, sponsored by UNE's Center for Global Humanities, is free and open to the public.

"A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies," Hedges writes. "And we are dying now. We will either wake from our state of induced childishness, one where trivia and gossip pass for news and information, one where our goal is not justice but an elusive and unattainable happiness, to confront the stark limitations before us, or we will continue our headlong retreat into fantasy."

This will be the theme of Hedges' lecture.

Hedges was a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. 

He was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for The New York Times coverage of global terrorism, and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. 

Hedges is the author of the bestseller American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and a Lannan Literary Fellow. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University and Princeton University. 

He is also the author of Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America and I Don't Believe in Atheists. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.