TEDx UC Davis
The fourth annual TEDx UC Davis took place in May, and videos from the program are available online — including one by Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and her daughter, Helena Tseregounis, who spoke on the topic “Two Generations, One Dialogue,” comparing “boomers” and “millennials.”
This year’s TEDx UC Davis explored the question “Pause or Press Play?” — looking at both the moments when people step back to consider and the moments when people jump into action. See all the videos here.
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Updated: Since this article's original posting date of July 29, 2014, the number of clicks on Professor Karima Bennoune's TEDx video had grown to 1.038 million as of Sept. 24.
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In March, in Northcott Theatre in Exeter, England, a full house of 460 people heard UC Davis law professor Karima Bennoune’s TEDx talk on Muslim fundamentalism.
Since then, the video of her talk — posted online by TEDxExeter and ultimately chosen to be a front page feature on TED.com — has become a viral sensation: amassing more than 630,000 views.
The scholar of international law spoke on the topic “When People of Muslim Heritage Challenge Fundamentalism,” sharing four powerful stories of people fighting against fundamentalism in their communities — from Algeria to Afghanistan.
The story subjects “(refused) to allow the faith they love to become a tool for crime, attacks and murder,” the TED website declares. “These personal stories humanize one of the most overlooked human rights struggles in the world.”
Bennoune drew the stories from the research she did for her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism, published in 2013.
For TEDxExeter, she turned her 342-page book into a talk of about 20 minutes — two minutes more than the generally accepted maximum for presentations in the global movement known as TED, which operates under the mantra “ideas worth spreading.” TED began in 1984 as a conference where technology, entertainment and design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.
Independently run TEDx events — hundreds of them — are held around the world, and of the thousands of TEDx talks, TED chooses fewer than 1 percent for the main TED website.
As of this morning (July 29), TED had tallied 632,054 views of Bennoune’s video on a variety of platforms, including TED.com, TED apps, iTunes and YouTube.
“It is amazing how this all started with one low-tech law professor on a stage in a room with 460 people and has ended up with a truly global audience,” Bennoune said in an email from North Africa, where she is doing UC Davis-sponsored research this summer.
“In these times filled with awful news about fundamentalist violence from Iraq to Libya to Somalia and beyond, it is so meaningful to have been able to share these stories about those who have resisted it, and have spoken out for tolerance, justice and peace,” she said.
“The goal is both to gain more support for those many Muslims who do speak out against extremism, but also to challenge Western stereotypes about people of Muslim heritage.
“I recently visited with one of the organizations of victims of the fundamentalist terrorism of the 1990s in Blida, Algeria, and showed them the TED video — which includes photos of some of their slain family members. One said to me: ‘For once, we are being heard.’”
Bennoune knows from Twitter how the video is spreading around the world: “I am especially honored that the talk has been tweeted over and over again by people from Muslim majority countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh who share my concern about these issues.
“In addition, one American man tweeted that the stories had forever changed his own, previously negative views of Muslims.
“All of this demonstrates the power of storytelling, which can now be done globally, and which can entirely change our contemporary discussions of human rights.”
She expressed gratitude for “the unique TED format” and to her UC Davis law colleagues who gave her great feedback about her talk beforehand, and who support her work — “which is not always easy work to do.”
“If you are moved by these stories, please share them,” she said.
Bennoune joined the law school in 2012; beyond international law, human rights and religious extremism, her special interests include terrorism and counterterrorism, and women’s rights.
Before coming to UC Davis, she was a faculty member at the Rutgers School of Law for 10 years, and during that time became the first Arab-American to receive the Derrick A. Bell Jr. Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools, honoring a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching and scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system or social justice.
Online
Bennoune’s TEDxExeter video and transcript
Read an article she posted to the TED website in July.
Read her recent interview with Mbarka Brahmi, an outspoken advocate against fundamentalism and terrorism in Tunisia. Her husband was Tunisian deputy Mohamed Brahmi, the opposition leader who was assassinated in Tunis a year ago.
Media Resources
Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu