JENNIFER L. POZNER

Women and the Media: Images of Gender,
Race and Class in News and Entertainment

With humor, razor-sharp analysis and provocative clips from shows like The Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model, American Idol, Extreme Makeover and Flavor of Love, media critic Jennifer L. Pozner exposes how “reality” TV reinforces regressive stereotypes about women and men, race and class, and sex, love and marriage in America.

Students will never see dating, mating and makeover shows the same way again… and they will laugh—a lot!

ALVIN SYKES

Alvin Sykes holds none of the standard credentials to wield influence in the power corridors of Washington, D.C. He is not a lobbyist or an attorney, nor did he graduate from a prestigious college. In fact, he is a high school dropout.

Yet senators listen to him. Prosecutors return his calls. He has taken it upon himself to seek justice in several different civil rights "cold cases" and has gotten results.

DISAGREEING ON EVERYTHING

A Debate on Attaining Peace in the Middle East

Anisa Mehdi, is an Emmy-award winning journalist and filmmaker specializing in Islam, and Michael Lame, is a management consultant and organizational trainer conducting leadership and communications programs in the US and the Middle East. They share their fresh approach to academic lectures on conflict in the Middle East. Anisa and Michael present, explore and discuss with the audience various perspectives that keep peace between Israelis and Palestinians at bay. Sharing the floor Anisa and Michael demonstrate the art of respectful dispute, while simultaneously they “argue” points of history, religion, aggression, victimization, justice, and conflict resolution.

ROCK THE VOTE

Mary McClelland & Lindsey Berman

Rock the Vote has been at the forefront of the youth vote movement, registering over 1.4 million young people in 2004 and tens of thousands more in 2006. Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization founded in 1990 to help protect freedom of expression and empower young people to change the world, is dedicated to engaging young people in the political process and ensuring their voices are heard; the first step of which is registering and voting. With a history of success, Rock the Vote is looking big to the next election cycle.

JONATHAN KOZOL

Author, Educator & Social justice Advocate

In the passion of the civil rights campaigns of 1964 and 1965, Jonathan Kozol moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood of Boston and became a fourth grade teacher in the Boston Public Schools. He devoted the subsequent four decades to issues of education and social justice in America.

ROBERT GREENWALD: FILMMAKER

Iraq For Sale, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price & Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism

Filmmaker and political activist Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" (2006), an expose of what happens when corporations go to war; as well as "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" (2005), detailing the retail giant's assault on families and American values; and "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" (2004), about the right-wing opinion factory known as Fox "News."

DAVID KACZYNSKI

Confronting Violence, Seeking Justice: The Death Penalty in America

David Kaczynski describes the ethical dilemma he faced when he began to suspect that his brother Theodore might be the Unabomber, and how his personal journey had led the forefront of the death penalty abolitionist movement.

MICHAEL LEAHY

Overcoming Sexual Addiction

RANDY COHEN

Is it ever ethical - to download music from the web? to ignore your school's honor code? to hand in the same paper for two different classes?

Randy Cohen has taken up these moral dilemmas of university life, along with many off-campus queries in his New York Times column, "The Ethicist." In his talk, "How to Be Good," he lays out the approach he takes, and discusses those taken by other people, in sorting through the ethical quandries of ordinary experience.

DAN RENZI: The (Un)Ordinary Story of a Gay Guy & HIV/AIDS Prevention

When Dan Renzi was 18, his parents told him he wasn't allowed to tell anyone he was gay because they didn't want their neighbors in Overland Park, Kansas to find out. So Dan went on MTV's The Real World and told everyone all at once. Sorry Mom and Dad. Dan is also a certified HIV/AIDS counselor, trained at the Washington, D.C. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DAVID MAGNUS, PH.D.

The Moral and Social Consequences of the Genetic Revolution

The 21st century has been called the Biotech Century and we have already witnessed the birth of many technologies with the power to transform society. Genetic testing raises a host of issues, from threats to privacy to the potential for a new eugenics movement. Join a frontrunner in biotechnology research as he breaks down this heavily debated frontier of science.

DR. JACK LEVIN

Overkill: Serial Murder Exposed

In startling, even shocking presentations, this nationally renowned criminologist holds a magnifying glass to the minds and motives of such vicious killers as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy, among others.

ZED NELSON

London-based photographer Zed Nelson does not shy away from conflict, controversy, or crisis. One of his most important works to date is "Gun Nation," which has been published internationally in newspapers and magazines, was screened on British television, and has won four major photojournalism awards. His other stories include: Cambodian elections; war in Angola, Afghanistan, Somalia and El Salvador; modern-day Cuba; the French Foreign Legion; the Ku Klux Klan; and nose-jobs in Iran.

JACK G. SHAHEEN, PH.D.

Dr. Shaheen is the acclaimed author of Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People. His presentations illustrate that stereotypes do not exist in a vacuum, that hurtful caricatures of Asians, blacks, Latinos and others, impact innocents. He explains why such portraits persist, and provides viable solutions to help shatter misperceptions.

PHOEBE ENG: Cultural Fluency

Creating Dialogues that Lead to Change

Join award-winning author and strategist Phoebe Eng as she describes the phenomenon of "cultural fluency," the ability to understand, and be understood, across perceived boundaries and among many communities. Eng will demonstrate how the ability to be "fluent" will be critically important to leaders in a world where borders of all kinds are disappearing. She will show you how policy, program goals, and definitions of leadership change when we truly embrace the fundamentals of "fluency.

DAVID J. SKAL: Death Makes A Holiday

A Cultural History of Halloween

Once upon a time Halloween was a quaint, homespun celebration; a carved pumpkin and a little trick-or-treating used to be sufficient celebration. Today, Americans expect to be chased through theme parks by chainsaw-wielding maniacs. Historian David Skal examines Halloween¹s ancient roots in harvest rituals and human sacrifice as well as the fascinating and surprising origins of Halloween icons like pointy-hatted witches and black cats.