Speaker Bios
Cornel West, a champion of racial justice since childhood, is one of America's most provocative public intellectuals. His writing, speaking, and teaching weave together the traditions of the black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz. The New York Times has praised his “ferocious moral vision.” Currently the Class of 1943 Professor at Princeton University, Dr. West burst onto the national scene in 1993 with his bestselling book, Race Matters, a searing analysis of racism in American democracy. Race Matters has become a contemporary classic, selling more than half a million copies to date. In West’s long awaited life story, BROTHER WEST: Living and Loving Out Loud, he offers a compelling exploration of his heart behind the human mind. Themes include Faith, Family, Philosophy, Love and Service. Cornel West has published 19 other books and has edited 13 texts. He is also an Honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Frances Fox Piven, is widely recognized as one of America's most thoughtful and provocative commentators on America's social welfare system. In the 1960s, Piven worked with welfare-rights groups to expand benefits; in the eighties and nineties she campaigned relentlessly against welfare cutbacks. A veteran of the war on poverty and subsequent welfare-rights protests both in New York City and on the national stage, she has been instrumental in formulating the theoretical underpinnings of those movements. Most recently she is known for being demonized by Glenn Beck for her previous work. She currently teaches at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, author of The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism, Poor People's Movements, Why Americans Don't Vote, The New Class War, Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate and is an Honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Michael Walzer,is one of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars (1977), On Toleration (1997), and Arguing About War (2004); he has served as editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the new forms of welfare and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.
Joseph M. Schwartz serves as a National Vie-President for DSA. A Professor of Political Science at Temple University, he teaches political theory and American politics. He is the winner of several university teaching awards. Schwartz received the 2011 David Easton Book Award from the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association for his most recent book, The Future of Democratic Equality: Reconstructing Social Solidarity in a Fragmented United States (Routledge, 2009). There, Schwartz argues that rampant inequality can only be overcome if diverse, but disempowered social groups build a sense of solidarity founded upon their common humanity. His political essays have appeared in Dissent, In These Times, Democratic Left, and The New Republic and he has conducted numerous radio and TV interviews on contemporary political and policy issues. Schwartz received his PhD in Political Science from Harvard University and his B.A. from Cornell. He also holds a second B.A. from Oxford University where he was a Marshall Scholar.
Scott McLemee is the Intellectual Affairs columnist for Inside Higher Ed. In 2008, he began a three-year term on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. From 1995 until 2001, he was contributing editor for Lingua Franca. Between 2001 and 2005, he covered scholarship in the humanities as senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2005, he helped start the online news journal Inside Higher Ed, where he serves as Essayist at Large, writing a weekly column called Intellectual Affairs. His reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Nation, Newsday, Bookforum, The Common Review, and numerous other publications. In 2004, he received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. He has given papers or been an invited speaker at meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Cultural Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, and the Organization of American Historians. A selection of his work is available at his website. He is also a member of two group blogs, Crooked Timber and Cliopatria.
Cryn Johannsen is the founder and executive director of AllEducation Matters (AEM). All Education Matters is a 501(c)(4) that raises public awareness about the student lending crisis. In addition, Ms. Johannsen works closely with congressional offices on the Hill, and is well-connected to higher education policy experts in D.C. and elsewhere. Ms. Johannsen’s name is well-known across the country, and she is recognized as an expert in the fields of higher education finance reform and student loan debt. These issues intersect with major problems that our society now faces, and Ms. Johannsen has been able to convey this to readers in numerous publications.
Ms. Johannsen’s work has appeared in Truthout.org, The Huffington Post, The New England Journal of Higher Education, and so forth. She is currently a freelance writer and regularly contributes to USA Today and an online magazine called The Loop21, the latter of which is written for an African-American audience. She also has a column, “Seriously Subversive,” at Hypervocal.com.
Ms. Johannsen has a Bachelor’s with honors from the University of Kansas, a Master’s in the social sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Master’s from Brown University in History. She was also an exchange scholar at Harvard University.
