Journalist and activist Naomi Klein will deliver the annual Chancellor’s Fellowship Lecture for the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 24, in Graham Chapel.
Klein’s talk, “The Present and Future of Capitalism,” originally was scheduled a year ago in January to kick off the 2009 Spring Assembly Series, but it was canceled due to inclement weather in Chicago.
In columns and best-selling books, Klein writes about global social ills such as the detrimental effects of brand-oriented consumerism and unconstrained free-market capitalism.
In her best seller, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” she challenges the ideology espoused by Milton Friedman and his followers that free-market policies create democratic nations. Rather, she sees free-market capitalism as the opposite, creating economic opportunists who use misery and disasters to push through economic policies that benefit themselves, not the people.
Last fall, the 10th anniversary edition of “No Logo,” Klein’s denunciation of branding, was published with an updated introduction.
Klein also writes a syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian, distributed internationally by The New York Times syndicate. Her 2004 article for Harper’s Magazine on the Iraq war won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. The documentary she co-produced with Avi Lewis called The Take, reporting on Argentina’s occupied factories, won the Best Documentary Jury Prize at the American Film Institute’s Film Festival.
Following the lecture, a panel discussion is scheduled for 2 p.m. in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge that will explore the issues Klein raises.
Panelists are Steven Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics in Arts & Sciences; Nathan Jensen, PhD, associate professor of political science in Arts & Sciences; and Michael Minta, PhD, assistant professor of political science, who will moderate.