Contributors
Directors
Alan Miller Alan is the co-founder of The Truman Brewery, a 10 acre site in London’s East End. The Truman Brewery now has over 200 companies, ranging from recording studios to art galleries, entertainment spaces, restaurants, bars, cafes, fashion and retail. It has been largely responsible for regenerating a significant area of London and creating a new cultural quarter. Alan is also a film director and has had his work broadcast internationally, with a specialization in music videos and live events. He writes on various cultural issues for several publications and is a published author. www.alandmiller.net
Jean Smith Jean is a fund raising director for a major health care institution in New York. Before settling in Brooklyn, Jean was based in London and Birmingham, England where she co-founded and directed a major volunteer led arts charity providing a platform for artists to show their work which otherwise might be ignored by mainstream venues. Her work to challenge the perceptions about people who suffer mental health problems has provided an open platform for debate on the issue and she has developed practical strategies to enable more productive, independent living.
Speakers
Daniel Ben-Ami
Daniel Ben-Ami has worked as a financial journalist for 20 years during which time he has contributed to numerous publications including the Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Prospect, the Sunday Times and Which? He has also done country risk analysis on the Middle East for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley 2001), his book on global finance, was recommended by the Baker Library of Harvard Business School. He also contributed a chapter to Cultural Difference, Media Memories: Anglo-American Images of Japan (Cassell 1997). Daniel is currently writing a book on changing perceptions of economic growth.
Josie Appleton
Journalist and Director of The Manifesto Club, UK
George Blecher
George Blecher is an ex-professor at CUNY, now a full-time writer and sometime actor. He writes articles and essays for many European publications and websites from Portugal to Turkey, among them spiked-online. He has just finished a book of short stories and also translates from Danish and Swedish.
Ben Breen
Ben Breen is a musician – and a wine expert. His latest album, the recording of the complete Brahms violin sonatas with pianist Milton Kaye has been released on the Tall oppies label in the US (available at reputable music stores or at www.aussifiddler.com)
David CallahanDavid Callahan has written extensively about American history, business, and public policy. He is author of The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead (Harcourt, Jan. 2004). His five previous books include Kindred Spirits: Harvard Business School’s Extraordinary Class of 1949 and How They Transformed American Business (John Wiley/Forbes). David lectures frequently about issues of ethics and integrity to universities, associations, and businesses.
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006). His articles and reviews have also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and Doublethink. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Paula Fass
Paula S. Fass is the Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught for the past thirty-one years. Her books include Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education (1989), The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s (1977), Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America (1997), and Childhood in America (2000, edited with Mary Ann Mason). Most recently, she was the editor-in-chief of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society (2004). A forthcoming collection of her essays on children will be published as Children of a New World: Essays on Society, Culture and the World, by New York University Press in 2006.
Michael Fitzpatrick
Michael Fitzpatrick has been a general practitioner in East London for the past twenty years, after training at Oxford and the Middlesex. He has written on a wide range of medical and political subjects, including Aids, addictions and health scares for both medical publications and the mainstream media. He has written columns in The Lancet and the British Journal of General Practice, reviews for the British Medical Journal, Nature and Community Care and is a regular contributor to the on-line magazine, Spiked. He has also appeared frequently on radio and television, and in 1997 produced a critical programme on ‘parenting’ for the BBC. His book The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle was published by Routledge in 2001. His critique of complementary medicine is included in Alternative Medicine - Should We Swallow It?, published by the Institute of Ideas/Hodder and Stoughton in 2002. His latest book, MMR and Autism: What Parents Need To Know (Routledge) was published in 2004.
Claire Fox
Claire Fox is Director of The Institute of Ideas in London. She is one of the judges for theUK Orange Book Prize.
Nick Frayn
Nick Frayn is a writer and co-editor of the Anti-War-on Terror blog, www.againstwot.com
Frank Furedi
Professor of sociology at the University of Kent, U.K., has written about the anti-political trends in both public and private life; his books include Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? Confronting 20th Century Philistinism and the forthcoming Politics of Fear: Beyond Left And Right. Visit Frank Furedi’s website: http://www.frankfuredi.com
Alex Gourevitch
Alex Gourevitch is a Ph.D student at Columbia University in political theory, where he works on democratic theory, international relations, and American politics. He has also worked as a journalist for The American Prospect, and has published in other magazines including The Washington Monthly and Spiked-Online. He is currently an editor of the anti-war on terror website ‘Against the War on Terror’ www.againstwot.com, and is the co-convener of the international relations working group Sovereignty and Its Discontentswww.said-workshop.org. He is also the co-editor of a volume of essays called ‘Politics Without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International Relations’, to be published by Routledge-Cavendish in 2007.
John Hewitt
John P. Hewitt is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of several scholarly articles on self, identity, and self-esteem; his books include Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionist Social Psychology (Allyn and Bacon, 2007), now in its 10th edition; Dilemmas of the American Self (Temple University Press, 1989), winner of the Charles H. Cooley Award of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction; and The Myth of Self-Esteem: Finding Happiness and Solving Problems in America (St. Martins, 1998). He retired from teaching in 2002 and now lives in an adobe house in the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson, Arizona with his wife, Myrna Livingston Hewitt, his Labrador retriever Perry, and numerous coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and cacti.
Russell Jacoby
Professor in residence at U.C.L.A., has been engaged in public discussion about the history of ideas and political life for over 30 years. His most recent books include, Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, and The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy.Visit Russell Jacoby’s UCLA webpage:http://www.history.ucla.edu/jacobyr
MARTIN I. HOFFERT
Martin I. Hoffert is Professor Emeritus of Physics and former Chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University. He has been on the research staff of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, General Applied Science Laboratories, Advanced Technology Laboratories, Riverside Research Institute and National Academy of Sciences Senior Resident Research Associate at the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Prof. Hoffert has published broadly in fluid mechanics, plasma physics, atmospheric science, oceanography, planetary atmospheres, environmental science, solar and winds energy conversion and space solar power. His work in geophysics aimed at development of theoretical models of atmospheres and oceans to address environmental issues, including the ocean/climate model first employed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess global warming from different scenarios of fossil fuel use. His early model of the evolving CO2 greenhouse in Mars’ atmosphere is also of interest today — providing both an explanation of Mars’ riverbed-like channels formed in the distant past and a motivation for terraforming its atmosphere for human habitability in the future.His research in alternate energy conversion includes wind tunnel and full-scale experiments on innovative wind turbines, photovoltaic generation of hydrogen and wireless power transmission (WPT) applied to solar power satellites. His present efforts focus on energy technologies that could stabilize climate change from the fossil fuel greenhouse – including (but not limited to) space solar power. He is a Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is presently a consultant to Versatility Software, Inc.
Cheryl HudsonAssociate Rothemere American Institute, University of Oxford, Author Ronald Reagan and the 1980s and American Popular Culture and anti-Americanism.
Tiffany Jenkins
Tiffany Jenkins is a journalist and is Director of the Arts and Society Programme, Institute of Ideas, London. She is currently doing a PhD on attitudes towards human remains in museum collections. www.tiffanyjenkins.blogspot.com
Alexander Kippen
Alexander Kippen runs Lighttowermedia in New York, a consulting firm providing speech writing and news interview preparation. Alexander reported on the U.S. Congress and The White House. He has contributed reports to CNN and National Geographic, Creative Screenwriting, The Washington Monthly, and once taught journalism at American University in Washington DC. Alexander is a foreign policy and economics graduate of George Washington and Johns Hopkins/SAIS focusing on U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, writing his 1995 master’s thesis on projected consequences of economic sanctions against Iraq.
Brian Lehrer
Host of WNYC, New York Public Radio’s highly-acclaimed daily talk and call-in show, “The Brian Lehrer Show,” has been an anchor and host of broadcast news and information programs for over 20 years. Time Magazine has proclaimed Lehrer’s show “New York City’s most thoughtful and informative talk show,” while The Daily News called it “The sane alternative in talk radio.”
Visit Brian’s WNYC webpage: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl
John Luik
Senior Fellow Democracy Institute, co-Author Diet Nation
James Matthews
James Matthews is a management consultant in Manhattan.
Ronald Marx
Director of Start Up and GTA Road Theater USA
Nancy McDermott
Nancy McDermott writes about public policy, private sphere and personal autonomy – when she’s not taking care of her two young sons.
Robert Pollock
Robert Pollock is a member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. In 2003, Robert was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the editorial writing category for “his clear, compelling editorials on the Food and Drug Administration’s delay in approval of new cancer drugs.” In 2002, he was named runner-up in the inaugural Frederic Bastiat Prize for Journalism awards held in London.
Corey Powell
Corey Powell, , is executive editor of Discover magazine, where he oversees the magazine’s design and editorial content. Previously he held positions as a features editor at Discover, as the magazine’s news editor, and as the director of Discover.com. Before joining Discover he spent eight years on the Board of Editors at Scientific American, where he coordinated the magazine’s physics and astronomy coverage. He has also worked at Physics Today and at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he assisted in testing and fabrication of high-energy astrophysics experiments. His first book, God in the Equation, an exploration of the spiritual impulse in modern cosmology, was published in 2002 by the Free Press. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, World Art, and The Forward.
Corey is an adjunct professor of science writing in NYU¹s Science and Environmental Reporting Program (currently on sabbatical). Major media appearances include guest spots on CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, CBS News, WABC, WB11, the Sci Fi Channel, Science Friday, BBC Radio, 1010 WINS, and the Leonard Lopate show, along with consultant work for Chedd-Angier and Big Rock Productions.
Joel Nathan Rosen
Joel Nathan Rosen, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Erosion of the American Sporting Ethos (McFarland, Summer 2007), co-editor of Reconstructing Fame: Race, Sport, and the Redemption of Once-Villainous Reputations. An Anthology (University of Mississippi Press, Summer 2008), and author of several articles that look at the intersection of race and human efficacy through music and sport.
Sharna Olfman
Sharna Olfman, Ph.D. is a professor of clinical and developmental psychology at Point Park University, the founding director of the Childhood and Society Symposium and the editor of the Childhood in America book series for Praeger Press. Her books include Child Honoring: How To Turn This World Around (with co-editor Raffi Cavoukian, 2006), No Child Left Different (2006), Childhood Lost (2005), and All Work and No Play: How Educational Reforms Are Harming Our Preschoolers (2003). Dr. Olfman is a member of the Council of Human Development, and a partner in the Alliance for Childhood. She has written and presented widely on the subjects of gender development, women’s mental health, infant care, and child psychopathology.
Sara Sant’Ambrogio
Sara Sant’Ambrogio is a Grammy Award winning cellist. She performs internationally as soloist and with The Eroica Trio, which has released seven albums with Angel/EMI (www.eroicatrio.com). The Eroica Trio were the subject of a PBS documentary. Sara released her solo CD Dreaming recently on Sebastian Records.www.sarasantambrogio.com
Sally Satel
Dr. Sally Satel is a resident scholar at AEI and the staff psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C. She serves on the advisory committee of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Dr. Satel was an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University from 1988 to 1993. From 1993 to 1994 she was a policy fellow with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. She has written widely in academic journals on topics in psychiatry and medicine, and has published articles on cultural aspects of medicine and science in numerous magazines and journals. Dr. Satel is author of Drug Treatment: The Case for Coercion (AEI Press, 1999) and PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (Basic Books, 2001), and is coauthor, with Christina Hoff Sommers, of One Nation under Therapy (St. Martin’s Press, 2005).
Mark Seddon
New York Bureau Chief and UN Correspondent for Al Jazeera English
Richard Sennett
Professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, U.K., and visiting lecturer at M.I.T., has authored many books on the interconnection between authority, modernism and public life; including, most recently, Respect in a World of Inequality.
Visit Professor Sennett’s LSE webpage:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/whoswho/sennett.htm
David Shankbone
David Shankbone is a writer, photographer and law student. He worked at Enron in London and then at Vinson & Elkins in Houston, but he never once shred a document. He has taken the portraits of influential people from famous First Amendment advocate Floyd Abrams to bearded woman Professor Jennifer Miller to Mystic River author Dennis Lehane. He has created a large body of photographic images of New York landmarks, neighborhoods, and people, but also common things such as skywriting, lettuce and eight ball players. These images are found on Wikipedia and are available for anyone to use in any manner for blogs, presentations, books, etc. Shankbone has lived in three countries, six states and 17 cities. He attended Fordham Law School.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DavidShankBone
Alex StandishAlex Standish is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Western Connecticut State University. His research is focused on the changing nature of the school curriculum in the current global era, especially through the concept of global citizenship education. He writes for Spiked-online, the Times Educational Supplement, CIVITAS and academic journals. In 2008, his first book Global Perspective in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the moral case for geography will be published by Routledge.
Peter Stearns
Peter N. Stearns was named Provost of George Mason University effective January 1, 2000. He also regularly teaches courses in world history and social history. Stearns received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, and previously attended Harvard College.
Prior to coming to George Mason, Stearns taught at Harvard, at the University of Chicago, at Rutgers University (where he chaired the New Brunswick History Department), and Carnegie Mellon University, where we was Heinz Professor of History. He served as Dean of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences from 1992 to 2000.
Marjorie Vai
Marjorie Vai is director of English Language Studies at The New School and is known for her innovative approaches to the programs she has developed there since 1987, including the ESL program, the Adult Literacy program, the ESOL Teacher Training Certificate Program, and most recently the Masters Degree Program in TESOL. Her career in program management has overlapped with a career in publishing. www.newschool.edu
Austin Williams
Austin Williams is the director of the Future Cities Project; director of the Transport Research Group and editor of Shortcuts: essential guides for building designers . An architect by profession, he is also a regular columnist in the Daily Telegraph Motoring section and a Visiting Tutor at the Vehicle Design department of the Royal College of Art. He was previously the technical editor of the Architects’ Journal.
He has written widely on urbanism, architecture and transport and convened the ‘ Future Vision: Future Cities ‘ conference at the LSE; ‘ The Future of London festival ‘ at the Museum of London and recently organised the ‘ Future of Community festival ‘ at Central St Martins College of Art and Design.
He edited “Transport in the New Millennium”; co-authored “The Macro World of MicroCars” and is currently writing “The Dangers of Sustainability”.
He has written for, amongst others: Top Gear, Politico, The Times Literary Supplement, New Humanist, The Times Higher Educational Supplement, MJ, Blueprint and Building Design.
