Foreign Affairs Symposium: Dexter Filkins

Description

The Foreign Affairs Symposium hosts Dexter Filkins, a journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work covering Pakistan and Afghanistan. This year's symposium explores "Shattered Reality: Reimagining the Future."

Called the "premier combat journalist of his generation," Filkins is an award-winning correspondent who has reported on the front lines of U.S. intervention in the Middle East. In 2009, he won a Pulitzer Prize as part of a team of New York Times journalists. Joining The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2011, he has written about the murder of a journalist in Pakistan, the uprisings in Yemen, and the crises in Syria and Lebanon.

As the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan, Dexter brings unparalleled insights into the conflict. His influential book, The Forever War, traces the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. His reporting from the front line brings to life deserts, mountains, and streets of carnage; a public amputation performed by Taliban; children frolicking in minefields; skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52s; a night's sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. The Forever War won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book and was named a best book of the year by The New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and the Boston Globe.

In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, Filkins has received two George Polk Awards, given annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and three Overseas Press Club Awards.

All in-person events at Johns Hopkins must follow university COVID-19 policies. See current guidelines online.

This event is co-sponsored by the International Studies Program, the SNF Agora Institute, and the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute. Thank you to our other sponsors: the Parents Fund, the President's Office, and the Alumni Association.