Conference Panels

Jim Abrahams

Movie director and writer best known for spoof movies that he co-wrote and produced, such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun series.

Andrew Bergman

Screenwriter, film director, and novelist, he received a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has written numerous comedic films including the original screenplay for the classic Blazing Saddles.

Lowell Bergman

Chair in Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, he is a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline, former director of investigative reporting at ABC News and CBS News producer for 60 Minutes. He received the Pulitzer Prize for A Dangerous Business.

Walt Bogdanich

Assistant editor for the New York Times Investigations Desk and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he was an investigative producer for 60 Minutes on CBS and has received the Pulitzer Prize three times for his investigative work at both the Times and the Wall Street Journal.

David Bordwell

Doug Bradley

After being drafted in 1969, he served at Army Headquarters in Vietnam in from 1970 to 1971. He then relocated to Madison where he co-founded Vets House, a storefront, community-based service center for Vietnam veterans. Most recently, he and Craig Werner wrote We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack to the Vietnam War which Rolling Stone named "Best Music Book of 2015."

Jane Brotman

Witnessing the Dow demonstration and attending Harvey Goldberg's lectures changed her life; after leaving the University of Wisconsin, she received a master's degree from New York University and eventually returned to Madison to work as a psychotherapist with a focus on the Latino community.

Paul Buhle

Former Senior Lecturer at Brown University, he is the author or editor of 35 volumes including histories of radicalism in the United States and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of nonfiction comic art volumes.

Tim Cahill

The author of nine books, he was a founding editor of Outside Magazine and has won numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award and the Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Award. He also set a world record for driving the entire length of the American continents, from Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in twenty-three days, twenty-two hours and forty-three minutes.

Kaleem Caire

Kaleem Caire; former CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison and founder of One City Early Learning Center, is a native of Madison. He served as a consultant with the Madison school district and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and received both the city of Madison's Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and the Urban League of Greater Madison's Whitney Young Award.

Fred Ciporen

Taught history at Brooklyn College, where he was active in the "Open Admission" protests. In 1980, he left teaching to pursue opportunities in the fast developing computer and media industries. In 1988 he became Vice President and Group Publisher of Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and School Library Journal and subsequently served on many high tech boards of directors and helped increase funding for American libraries.

Laurie Beth Clark

Since the 1980s Clark has made large-scale, site-specific installations and solo and collaborative performances, single-channel and multi-channel video works, and virtual environments. Early on her work was featured as historically significant venues including Franklin Furnace, Randolph Street Gallery, WARM Gallery, and the Cleveland Public Theater Performance Art Festival. Since that time she has done 139 shows and performances in 35 countries on five continents. Her work has been recognized with funding from the Art Matters, Arts Midwest, Film in the Cities, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, NEA and Wisconsin Art Board.

John Coatsworth

John Coatsworth is the Provost of Columbia University, as well as Professor of International and Public Affairs and of History. He is a leading scholar of Latin American economic and international history, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the former president of the American Historical Association. He received his BA in History from Wesleyan University, and his MA and PhD in Economic History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nicholas V. Cozzi

Nicholas V. Cozzi, Ph.D. is a scientist and educator at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. He holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and a B.S. in Pharmacology and Toxicology. Dr. Cozzi teaches pharmacology at the UW and he is a frequent guest lecturer at other academic institutions around the United States. Dr. Cozzi's research involves the design, chemical synthesis, and testing of substances with central nervous system activity. He is interested in how these agents act in the brain to enhance mood, improve cognition, and increase awareness, and in their clinical value for treating addiction, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic fear, and other mental health ailments. Dr. Cozzi is internationally recognized for his work in these areas.

Katherine Cramer

Director of the Morgridge Center for Public Service and a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she is known for her book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.

Richie Davidson

Professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as well as founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds. A major focus of his current work is popularizing what is known about the plasticity of the brain—that one can learn happiness and compassion as skills just as one learns to play a musical instrument, or train in golf or tennis.

Hasia Diner

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Class of 1968, Hasia Diner is the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University. She also directs the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History and is the author of a number of books which explore aspects of American Jewish history, American immigration history, and the history of American women.

Jackie DiSalvo

associate Professor, Marxist-Feminist literary scholar at Baruch College, after being red-baited out of Rutgers. An activist from Mississippi Freedom Summer and SDS to helping found Occupy, she is now a militant delegate of her CUNY AFT faculty union and its anti-war committee.

Frank Emspak

Frank Emspak, PhD History UW, he spent the next 20 years as an activist in the trade union movement in Lynn MA, returning to the Madison and the University of Wisconsin's School for Workers in 1991 and retiring in 2008. In 2000, he became the director of Workers Independent News, a nationally syndicated newscast dedicated to the interests and concerns of working people.

Stuart Ewen

A Distinguished Professor at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center in the departments of History, Sociology and Media Studies, he was a field secretary for the civil rights organization the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) n 1964 and early 1965, and was one of the founding editors of the underground newspaper, Connections, in Madison, Wisconsin, when he was a student.

Kathleen Falk

Served as Dane County Executive from 1997 until 2011; previously she worked as co-director and legal counsel of Wisconsin's Environmental Decade and In 2013, she was appointed Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;

David Feingold

David Feingold graduated from the University of Wisconsin (1967,) he organized and marched with Martin Luther King in the Chicago Freedom Movement and later completed alternative service as a Conscientious Objector (1968-1970). After graduation from the University of Chicago Law School, David practiced law in Janesville for 37 years.

Michael Feldman

an American radio personality, his Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?, distributed by Public Radio International, was carried on dozens, if not hundreds of radio stations across the country for more than thirty years and spun off books, clothing and even a television program. He has given himself the title of "Producer Internationale," refers to Public Radio International as "The International House of Radio," and, since the demise of radio, he is currently producing Whad'Ya Know as a podcast.

Jerry Fortier

had a bird's eye view of every performance of “Peter Pan” while pumping psychedelic effects out of the Play Circle projection booth and the back of B10 Commerce and has since been engaged in integrating projection and performance in many productions and venues.

Roberta Gassman

now on UW's faculty, she was President Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at U.S. Department of Labor, Secretary of Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development, top aide to Dane County Executive and Madison's Mayor, Governor's Policy Advisor on Employment and Women's Issues and president of Madison's Equal Opportunities Commission.

Christine George

Associate Director for Research, Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning, focusing on collaborative community-university research partnerships on social justice issues that inform social policy and democratize knowledge. Previously, AFSCME union activist and staff, Harold Washington election campaign staff, Rising Up Angry leader, and Chicago Women's Liberation Union activist. Undergraduate Madison 1964-68. Secretary of Madison SDS chapter.

Peter Gilbert

Producer and Director of Photography of the award winning film Hoop Dreams, he is currently a professor in the Documentary Film Making program at Wake Forrest University.

Gwen Gillon

A longtime resident of Madison, she grew up in Anniston, Alabama and received a scholarship to Tougaloo College where she became part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); she participated in the Freedom Summer of 1964, an effort to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi, where Stokely Carmichael referred to her as a "gutsy little sister."

Michael Goldberg

Now retired after enjoying a 40-year career as an arts presenter and administrator, he has run 3 extraordinary venues (WI Union Theater, Overture Center, Coronado PAC). Opera directing credits include works by Britten, Gilbert & Sullivan, Rossini and Stravinsky.

Ann Gordon

Historian, Research Professor Emerita, Rutgers University, she spent 30 years assembling, editing, & publishing papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony. Then took up cause of contingent faculty. She arrived in Madison in 1966 for graduate school, sat in against Dow Chemical, wrote for Radical America, was an editor of Connections and a teaching assistant.

Peter Greenberg

Got his start working at the Daily Cardinal and went on to become the Travel Editor for NBC's Today show as well as the Travel Editor for CBS News. A multiple Emmy Award winning journalist and television producer, he is known as the "Travel Detective."

Jeff Greenfield

Former editor of the Daily Cardinal, he graduated with a law degree from Yale where he was editor of the Yale Law Journal, then served as a speechwriter for Senator Robert F. Kennedy before becoming a political commentator and analyst for CBS and ABC News and CNN.

Neil Heinen

Editorial Director at WISC-TV and regular opinion contributor to Madison Magazine.

John Herman

Associate Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he has consulted to individuals, governments and academic medical centers across the United States and internationally. Dr. Herman joined the staff of the MGH Psychopharmacology and Addiction clinics in 1984 and his teaching efforts since centered on helping clinicians and systems develop solutions to addiction. Dr. Herman grew up in Milwaukee and received his BA and MD from the University of Wisconsin.

Scott Herrick

Scott Herrick worked as a "Peace Intern" on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) providing draft counseling in Madison and training of draft counselors in Madison and around Wisconsin from 1968 - 1970. He is a practicing attorney in Madison.

Paul Higginbotham

A Judge of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the first and only African American to serve on the court, he has been involved in the civil rights struggle since his teenage years when his father marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Dan Kaufman

Dan Kaufman; a contributor to the New York Times and The New Yorker, he grew up in Madison and moved to Brooklyn in part to further his work as a musician. He continues to perform with his band Barbez and in July Norton will publish his book The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics

Jonathan Kauffman

is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle food section and the author of Hippie Food, a narrative history of how Americans came to eat brown rice, tofu, whole-wheat bread, and granola.

Barbara Lawton

Barbara Lawton served two terms as Wisconsin's first woman to be elected lt. governor, and later co-founded Issue One, dedicated to reducing the influence of money on politics.

Gerald Lenoir

Part of the Black student strikes that won the establishment of the Afro-American Studies Department, he was also a leader in the antiapartheid movement in the 1970s, the Executive Director of the Black Coalition on AIDS in San Francisco and the founding Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Stuart Levitan

Madison-based historian, journalist and radio host, he is completing a history of Madison in the '60s, to be published by the Wisconsin Historical Society in the fall of 2018.

Daniel Levitin

Cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician, and record producer, he is James McGill Professor Emeritus of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal. He has appeared frequently as a guest commentator on NPR and CBC and is the author of the best-selling book, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.

Herb Lewis

Herbert Lewis; a cultural anthropologist, he has long been engaged with the history of anthropology. His early research involved the social and political organization of two very different populations in Ethiopia. His next work focused on ethnicity and culture change among various Jewish groups in Israel. His work has also traced the major transformation undergone by American anthropology as a result of the cataclysmic events of the 1960s—the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the increasing rise of the women's and other identity movements, and the increasingly visible anti-colonial movements.

Bill Linton

Co-founded the non-profit Usona Institute in 2014, a medical research organization that supports research to further the understanding of the therapeutic effects of psilocybin and other consciousness expanding medicines.

Tom Loftus

Served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1977 until 1991 and was speaker of the Assembly; he was then appointed by president Bill Clinton to be United States Ambassador to Norway where he served until 1997; in 2005, he was appointed by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.

Michael Mann

Michael Mann; an American film director, screenwriter, and producer of film and television who is best known for his distinctive brand of stylized crime drama. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His most acclaimed works are the crime film Heat (1995) and the docudrama The Insider (1999).

David Maraniss

Journalist and author, he currently serves as an associate editor for The Washington Post. He received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1993 for his coverage of then-candidate Bill Clinton. Among his published works are best selling biographies of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and the book They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967.

Alfred McCoy

Alfred William McCoy; holds the Harrington Chair in History and is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of numerous books and has written about, and testified before Congress, about the politics of heroin, the world of crime syndicates, international political surveillance, and, most recently, The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.

Ron McCrea

Former Press Secretary for Wisconsin's governor in 1980 and News Editor of the Madison Capitol Times for many years, his most recent work is the book Building Taliesin: Frank Lloyd Wright's Home of Love and Loss. Through letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a stunning assemblage of photographs - many of which have never before been published - author Ron McCrea tells the fascinating story of the building of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, which would be the architect's principal residence for the rest of his life.

Tony Michels

The George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a special emphasis on immigration, politics, and comparative ethnic history, as well as courses in labor history and radical political movements.

Doug Moe

The author of numerous critically-acclaimed non-fiction books, as well as thousands of newspaper columns and magazine articles, he writes corporate, foundation and personal histories, all with a signature storytelling style that has earned him a devoted following across nearly four decades.

Kalleen Mortensen

a retired librarian from the UW-Madison, School of Education Library with specialization in Archives, founded the Madison Lesbian Herstory Project in 1991. The group produced the MLHP Slide Presentation documenting Madison lesbian herstory through photography. Currently participating on the board of the UW-Madison LGBTQ Archives.

Tia Nelson

Recognized for her work on climate change, she served for 17 years with The Nature Conservancy and was the first director of its global Climate Change Initiative. She is currently a managing director of the Outrider Foundation.

Tracy Nelson

Nelson moved to San Francisco in 1966 from Madison, where she became part of the music scene there, and has been a recording artist for over fifty years. In 1974, her duet with Willie Nelson, "After the Fire is Gone," was nominated for a Grammy Award.

John Nichols

A liberal / progressive American journalist and author, he is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times. Books authored or co-authored by Nichols include The Genius of Impeachment and The Death and Life of American Journalism. He is a regular contributor to In These Times and The Progressive. He appears in the documentary films Outfoxed, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, Orwell Rolls in His Grave, and Call It Democracy. Nichols is co-founder, with Robert McChesney and Josh Silver, of Free Press.

Kathleen Nichols

Active in the Madison LGBT scene, she was a Dane County Supervisor and is currently an advisor for the Communication Arts major at the University of Wisconsin.

Ismael Ozanne

A lifelong resident of Madison, Wisconsin, he played varsity soccer for the Badgers men's soccer team, worked as an Assembly Page for the Wisconsin State Legislature and staffed the Joint Committee on Finance. In February of 2008, Governor Doyle appointed Ozanne to be the Executive Assistant for the Department of Corrections and in 2010, Governor Doyle appointed him to be the Dane County District Attorney, the first African American District Attorney in Wisconsin's history.

Dennis Paoli

has written for film, TV, the stage, and the internet. His feature films include adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Dagon, and the stage play Nevermore: An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. He is also an academic, a teacher and administrator at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

John Parfrey

John Parfrey graduated from UW-Madison in 1969 and served his alternative service as a CO at Madison General Hospital from 1970-1972. He was an educator at the primary, secondary, and college levels and worked in financial education in the second half of his career. He is retired and lives in Colorado.

Steve Paulson

the Executive Producer and one of the founders of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, he has been a contributing writer for Salon and Nautilus and has written for Slate, Huffington Post and The Atlantic. He often explores the connections between science, philosophy and spirituality. His book Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science was published by Oxford University Press.

Gerald Peary

a Ph.D. From UW-Madison in Communications, he is a retired film professor from Suffolk University-Boston, a long-time film critic for the Boston Phoenix, and the author of eight books on cinema. He programs the Boston University Cinematheque, and is a writer-director of feature documentaries including For the Love of Movies: the Story of American Film Criticism.

Lester Pines

a civil rights and criminal litigator in practice in Madison for over forty years, he was a student of Harvey Goldberg, George Mosse, Stanley Kutler, and Michael Hakeem. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, known for defending Planned Parenthood, marriage equality, public education and challenging voter ID and limits on collective bargaining. He also represented three of the four defendants charged with bombing the Army Math Research Center on campus.

Odessa Piper

following cooking and farming in Wisconsin's driftless region, Odessa Piper founded Madison's pioneering farm to table restaurant L'Etoile in 1976 and ran it for 30 years. She continues to advocate for the gastronomy of the snowbelt, its seasons, farmers and artisans and is currently developing a Food Artisan Program for Taliesin Preservation Inc. in Spring Green Wisconsin.

Jonathan Pollack

Received his PH.D. from the University of Wisconsin, now Professor of history at Madison College (formerly MATC) and honorary scholar, UW Center for Jewish Studies. He is currently writing a book on the history of Jews at the University of Wisconsin.

Ron Radosh

a founder of the UW folk music club, a member of The Socialist Club, and an editor of "Studies on the Left," he is currently a columnist for The Daily Beast, the author of over 20 books and lives in the Washington, D.C. area where he is a member of "The Concerned," an anti-Trump group.

Steven Reiner

The Director of Video Journalism and an associate professor in the Stony Brook University School of Journalism, he is a thirty year veteran of network broadcast television and a multiple Emmy Award winning former producer for CBS News' 60 Minutes. He has worked at both NBC and ABC News, served as an editor for The Atlantic Magazine and as senior editor and executive producer of NPR's flagship news program "All Things Considered." He was Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Cardinal from 1969 to 1970

Anne Reynolds

consults on board leadership, cooperative start-ups, and organizational development, having served for decades at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, where she led the Center's outreach, education and development program. She has worked with organizations in all sectors, including food systems, housing, agriculture, grocery, energy and worker-owned.

Ken Robbins

Dr. Ken Robbins; board certified in internal medicine and psychiatry with a master's in public health, he has been on the clinical faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health for over 30 years and is the past Medical Director of the Mendota Mental Health Institute. Dr. Robbins has had a longstanding interest in what leads people, particularly those with psychiatric illnesses, to use alcohol and drugs.

Hannah Rosenthal

Served as a Special Envoy and as the head of the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism in the Obama Administration for three years. She also has been a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and served as the founding executive director of the Wisconsin Women's Council, 1985-1992. The former head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), and former executive director of the Chicago Foundation for Women, she served on the advisory council of J Street and J Street PAC. In 1995, Rosenthal was appointed by the Clinton Administration to serve as Midwest regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2005, she was named one of the Forward 50, a list of the most influential Jews selected by The Forward newspaper.

Matt Rothschild

The executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, he worked at The Progressive magazine for 32 years, for most of those years, he was the editor and publisher. Author of a book entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression and editor of the anthology called Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive, 1909-2009, his opinion pieces have run in the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the Miami Herald and a host of other newspapers.

Jerry Rousseau

Jerry Rousseau graduated from UW-Madison in 1970 and served his alternative service as a CO at Madison General Hospital on an inpatient psychiatric unit from 1970-1972. He is a UW-Milwaukee Emeritus Clinical Associate Professor of Social Work & Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 47 years of mental health clinical work.

Allen Ruff

Long-time Madison resident, author, activist and weekly radio host on WORT-fm, he received his PHD in History at the UW. His dissertation dealing with the history of the pre-World War I US Left was largely mentored by Harvey Goldberg.

Jesse Samberg

A student at the UW Madison in the '60s, he went on to become Head of Business Services & Senior Director of Performance Management with the Mass Transit Authority of New York City. He is currently a consultant with IBM.

Boz Scaggs

After attending the University of Wisconsin, he gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 hit singles, including, "Lido Shuffle" and "Lowdown" from the critically acclaimed album Silk Degrees.

Ira Schneider

A pioneer of video in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his video installation work and single channel tapes explored the manipulation of time, interactivity, and simultaneity as formal and conceptual devices. He was a participant in the landmark exhibition TV as a Creative Medium at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1969 and created several important early multi-channel video installations, including Manhattan is an Island, and Time Zones.

Scott Seyforth

Scott Seyforth holds a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is in his 23rd year of work in University Housing where he is an Assistant Director of Residence Life. For over a decade Seyforth has been actively involved in collecting and archiving the history of the local LGBTQ community. He is one of the founders of the Madison LGBTQ Oral History Project and the Madison LGBTQ Archive at the UW-Madison Archives.

Anat Shenker Osorio

A communications expert, researcher and political pundit whose one-of-a-kind work is challenging the way dozens of organizations and political figures talk about the pressing issues of our time; she is also a graduate of Madison West high school.

Ben Sidran

Madison musician, writer, journalist and teacher, he has recorded 35 solo albums and written five books, including There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream which was shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Award.

Leo Sidran

A musician, composer, performer, and producer whose credits include co-producing the Oscar-winning song "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" for the soundtrack to the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, Sidran began his career in music early, having learned to play the drums from funk-jazz percussionist Clyde Stubblefield, and touring as a teenager with veteran rock star Steve Miller. He currently lives in Brooklyn, hosts the podcast The Third Story which features long form conversations with creative types of all stripes, and produces music for film, television, commercials and various recording artists, including his own signature recordings.

Glenn Silber

Filmmaker best known for his film, The War At Home, a documentary about the anti-war movement in Madison, Wisconsin which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Paul Soglin

Mayor of Madison for more than two decades, including stints in the 1970's, '80s, '90s and the 21st century; a former UW anti-war student activist.

Rena Steinzor

A Professor at the University of Maryland School Law School, her career has focused on regulatory systems particularly health, worker safety, environmental, and financial service regulation (BP, Deepwater Horizon, Texas City Refinery, Tesoro Refinery, Upper Big Branch Mine, New England Compounding Center); she is also a past editor of the UW Daily Cardinal.

Norman Stockwell

Norman Stockwell, publisher of The Progressive, for over 20 years, served as WORT Community Radio’s Operations Coordinator in Madison, Wisconsin. He also coordinated the IraqJournal website in 2002-2003. In 2011, he regularly reported on protests in Madison for Iran’s PressTV and other outlets. His reports and interviews have appeared on Free Speech Radio News, DemocracyNow!, and AirAmerica, and in print in Z Magazine, the Capital Times, AlterNet, Toward Freedom, the Tico Times, the Feminist Connection, and elsewhere.

Nora Stone

Nora Stone; a Ph.D. candidate in film in the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, her dissertation explores the creation of a multi-layered market for documentary films between 1960 and the early 2000s. Her short film "Mommy Moments" screened at the Virginia Film Festival and Driftless Film Festival. She teaches courses in film studies and advanced film production.

Dean Strang

A Wisconsin criminal defense attorney known to the general public for his appearance in the Netflix series Making a Murderer.

Evan Stark

A self-described "student leader frozen in time," he is a forensic social worker, co-director of the Yale Trauma Studies, specializing in the problems of violence against women and children, and is a Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs, Public Health and Gender Studies at Rutgers.

Mary Sweeney

Mary Sweeney is a feature film director, producer, writer, and editor. She has a long history of creative collaboration with David Lynch, beginning with Blue Velvet in 1986. She edited Twin Peaks Television (1990), Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me (1992), Hotel Room, HBO, (1993), Lost Highway (1996), The Straight Story (2000) and Mulholland Drive (2001.) Her producing credits date to 1995 with Nadja, and include Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire (2006), directed by Lynch, and Baraboo (2009) her directorial debut based on her original screenplay. She is the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor of film at USC and is a Madison native.

Allen Swerdlowe

Holds masters degrees in Architecture from Columbia University and Fine Arts from the Chicago Art Institute and an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he held several positions at The Daily Cardinal (1967-70), including Associate and Managing Editor. His work since has won numerous awards including the Lucy G. Moses award twice (New York Landmarks Conservancy) and a Presidential Design Award.

Mari Jo Buhle

emerita professor of History and American Studies, Brown University, attended graduate school in Madison, 1968-71 and completed a PhD in 1974.

Marty Tandler

An original founder of SDS at the University of Wisconsin.

Nick Thorkelson

Nick Thorkelson's graphic novel about Herbert Marcuse is coming soon from City Lights, and his stories have appeared in Paul Buhle's comics anthologies. He has done cartoons and comics for the Boston Globe and a number of peace and justice groups. He also played keys in Phil Buss's rock band.

John Tortorice

Director Emeritus, George L. Mosse Program in History, UW-Madison.

Dave Wagner

Journalist, investigative reporter and author of The Politics of Murder: Organized Crime in Barry Goldwater's Arizona. He was a contributor to Tender Comrades, co-author of A Very Dangerous Citizen and a political editor at the Arizona Republic.

Dick Wagner

Long time Madison activist in the LGBT community, he just completed a book about the gay history of Wisconsin.

David Ward

Trained as a geographer, he was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin from 1993 to 2001, then president of the American Council on Education from 2001 to 2008, and again served as the Interim Chancellor of the UW-Madison in 2011.

Howard Waxman

Playwright, novelist, and director he is a veteran of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a founding member of Madison's Broom Street Theater, and, notably, played Tinkerbell in the UW production of Peter Pan.

Craig Werner

Teaches in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the UW and is co-author of the recent book We Got To Get Out Of This Place with Doug Bradley. Teaches literature, music and cultural history in the Department.

Ben Wikler

The Washington Director of MoveOn.org, the nation's largest grassroots progressive organization, he led the group's award-winning work to oppose the repeal of Obamacare. Previously, he held senior leadership roles at the world's two largest online activist networks, Change.org and Avaaz.org, and worked as a writer and producer for Al Franken before his entry into politics. A Madison native, he started contributing to The Onion while a student at West High School in the 90's and continued as a student at Harvard.

Carla Wright

serves on the board of Midwest Organic Services Association and President of the Board for the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, host of the nation's largest organic farming conference. MOSES hosts numerous field days and provides other resources and expertise to help farmers grow organic.

Sue Zaeske

Associate Dean for Advancement, Arts & Humanities, College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin, her scholarship focuses on rhetoric, gender, and political culture, exploring how American women who petitioned against slavery not only contributed to the abolitionist movement, but also renegotiated their status as citizens. She is currently collecting and analyzing examples of appropriations of the Old Testament heroine Esther in order to explain why this tale possesses such enduring appeal.