1999 Socialist Scholars Conference

Speakers

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, by any measure, has led a most extraordinary life. In one index he is ranked as the eighth most cited person in history, right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato and Freud. His contributions to modern linguistics are legendary. In addition to his pioneering work in that field, he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for many decades. Chris Hedges says he is “America’s greatest intellectual” who “makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.” The New Statesman calls him “the conscience of the American people.” He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. At 94, he is still active; writing and giving interviews to the media all over the world. He is the author of scores of books, his latest are Consequences of Capitalism, Chronicles of Dissent and Notes on Resistance.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich was a renowned social critic, journalist, feminist and author. She was born in Butte, Montana and studied chemistry at Reed College in Oregon and later received a Ph.D. in cellular immunology at Rockefeller University in New York. But she left a possible career in science and teaching to become a muckraker in the tradition of Ida B. Wells and Lincoln Steffens. She wrote many books. Her articles appeared in Ms., Mother Jones, and The Progressive. She wrote incisively and with compassion about working people and the hardships they endure. To write about the underclass she went undercover and took low-wage jobs such as hotel maid, cleaning houses, nursing home aide and waitressing. Through her work she made the invisible working poor visible. She was long active in the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America. In 2012 she founded the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, seeking to place the crisis of poverty and economic insecurity at the center of the national political conversation. Her best-known book Nickel and Dimed, a classic in social justice literature, has sold millions of copies. She passed away on September 1, 2022. Katha Pollitt in The Nation wrote “Barbara accomplished so much, but what I love most about her work is that it was never boilerplate. She always found a way to take her argument to a deeper level. And there was always empathy—for the people who are overlooked, whose struggles are disregarded, who have to fight for food and shelter and a halfway decent life, for every shred of dignity and recognition.”

Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson, a globally renowned scholar of race, religion and contemporary culture, is the Centennial Chair and University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. A dynamic speaker, he lectures widely. Among his many books are April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King’s Death and How it Changed America, Tears We Cannot Stop, Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, and Jay-Z: Made in America.