Award-winning journalist up next in 'Theater of War' series
Christopher Hedges
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christopher Lynn Hedges will present a talk titled "The Empire of Illusion - is us" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14. Free and open to the public, the event will take place in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.
This is the latest event in the yearlong "Theater of War in a House of Peace" program. Rick Chrisman, director of religious and spiritual life at Skidmore, is organizing
the series, which broadly considers the material and spiritual costs of war and the
ethics of the war policy of the United States.
Hedges, currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute in New York City, has specialized in writing about American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.
His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009). He also wrote the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years (1990-2005).
In 2002, Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times that received the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He also received in 2002 the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University and Princeton University. He is currently the F. Ross Johnson-Connaught Distinguished Visitor in American Studies, Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of Toronto.
Throughout the year, Chrisman hopes to offer programs featuring lectures, literary events, concerts, and theatrical performances. He welcomes proposals from academic departments, faculty members, and students who are interested in participating. Please contact Chrisman at rchrisma@skidmore.edu or extension 8340.
