"Globalization: Trends of the 21st Century"
Robin Wright
Sep 19, 2007

Robin Wright has reported from more than 130 countries on six continents for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times of London, CBS News and The Christian Science Monitor. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Times (London), The Guardian (London), The International Herald Tribune and many others.

"Life Under the Taliban: An Afghan Woman?s Odyssey"
Farooka Gauhari
Oct 17, 2007

In 1997, Farooka Gauhari published her memoirs, Searching for Saleem: An Afghan Woman?s Odyssey. At the time, no Afghan woman had published an English memoir in book form. Her personal account covers everything from the search for her missing husband, of watching her home country topple, the Afghan woman?s presence in politics shrink, witnessing the government institutionalize repression, to her gradual decision to take her family and leave a country where she had once been flagged as an American agent, to create a new life in a country where she now fears retaliation because of her Afghan and Muslin ties.

"Behind the Scenes in Washington"
Jeffrey Birnbaum
Nov 14, 2007

Jeff Birnbaum is an award-winning author, television commentator, and a columnist for The Washington Post. Prior to joining the Post, he spent seven years as the chief of Fortune magazine?s Washington bureau and two years as a senior political correspondent for Fortune?s sister publication, Time. Before joining Time in 1995, Birnbaum worked for the Wall Street Journal for 16 years. On television, he is a political analyst for Fox News Channel and is a regular panelist on PBS?s Washington Week. On radio, he serves as a commentator for the national business show, Marketplace, and appears frequently on Fox News Radio as a political analyst.

Bobbie Seale
Feb 20, 2008

Former Chairman, Surviving-Founder and National Organizer of the Black Panther Party, USA, Bobby was born in Dallas, Texas in 1936. He grew up in Oakland/Berkeley, California and later joined the United States Air Force to become a structural repairman on high performance aircraft. At Merritt College in 1962, Bobby Seale, an engineering-design major, was first introduced to his African and African-American people?s history of struggle. In 1963, Seale began a career as a community organizer through the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). Among his accomplishments were the formations of youth job and tutorial programs. With Malcom X?s death, Bobby Seale dedicated his life to a revolutionary humanist cause: ?To help turn this backward racist world around, to make some human sense.?

"Spiritual Perspectives on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Global Upheaval"
Ira Rifkin
Mar 19, 2008

Ira Rifkin is an award-winning journalist who specializes in issues relating to religion and culture with special emphasis on international religious conflicts and emerging trends, the Middle East, the American Jewish and Muslim communities, Eastern religions, new religious movements, religious freedom concerns, and the impact of globalization. He is the author of Spiritual Perspectives on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Cultural Upheaval, and the editor of Spiritual Innovators: Seventy-five Extraordinary People Who Changed the World in the Past Century.

Wilma Mankiller
Apr 16, 2008

In an historic tribal election in July 1987, the members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma elected their first woman Principal Chief, Wilma Mankiller. She was re-elected in 1991 with nearly 83% of the vote. In 1983, Mankiller was elected Deputy Principal Chief, also the first woman to hold that position. She succeeded the previous Principal Chief upon his resignation in December 1985. Chief Mankiller?s roots are planted deep in the rural community of Rocky Mountain in Adair County, Oklahoma. She was born at the Indian Hospital in Tahlequah, and grew up in a rural setting with few amenities. When she was 11, her family moved to California as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program.