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E-Newsletter > Speakers News: March 2010

Speaker news: March 2010

IN THIS ISSUE:
ESPN baseball analyst Doug Glanville, Eaarth author Bill McKibben, A Thousand Sisters author Lisa Shannon, filmmaker and gay rights author Dean Hamer and religious scholar Steven Prothero.

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DOUG GLANVILLE

The Game from Where I Stand

Former Major Leaguer and ESPN baseball analyst tells it like it is

Doug Glanville tells the story of the Major Leagues from an often overlooked perspective: that of the players themselves. Glanville shows us the behind-the-scenes look at how the Major Leagues operate, from how the players prepare for games to how they respond to trades and injuries. In his professional career, Glanville experienced every aspect of being a player - the first-round pick, the prospect, the disappointment, the can't-miss, the cornerstone, the veteran, the traded, the injured, the comeback kid - and most recently, the television analyst. Ivy League educated, Glanville speaks with intelligence and poise while still delivering the raw and true-to-life tidbits that can only come from a former ballplayer. Glanville is a man who has spent his entire life around the one thing he loves most, the game - and his passion, wit and baseball knowledge are apparent every time he speaks.

Doug Glanville Speaker Profile

BILL MCKIBBEN

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough Planet

Bill McKibben talks about how humanity must adapt to survive

"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." - Barbara Kingsolver's review of Eaarth

Bill McKibben's new book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough Planet is not about how to prevent global warming, it's about how to live through it. In Eaarth, he leads readers to the devastatingly comprehensive conclusion that we no longer inhabit the world in which we've flourished for most of human history: we've passed the tipping point for dramatic climate change, and even if we could stop emissions yesterday, our world will keep warming, triggering more extreme storms, droughts, and other erratic catastrophes, for centuries to come. In his engaging and intellectually stimulating keynotes, McKibben challenges us to rethink the way our society works. How can we come together as our world seemingly falls apart? What does a warming world mean to social organization? McKibben's riveting and informative talks will help open the audience's eyes to the changing world around them.

Bill McKibben Speaker Profile

LISA SHANNON

Watching Oprah One Moment, Helping Congolese Women the Next

Lisa Shannon has given up everything -- her fiance, her job -- to raise awareness for thousands of women in the Congo

Lisa Shannon's A Thousand Sisters is a remarkable -- and remarkably frank -- book about her journey to help women in the civil war-decimated Congo. Running solo marathons to raise money for educating Congolese women, Shannon has been applauded by the likes of Alice Walker (The Color Purple), Nicolas Kristof (Half the Sky) and Oprah Winfrey (who both inspired and helped publicize Shannon's lone journey). Shannon's efforts, written about in The New York Times and TIME, have brought worldwide attention to "the worst place on earth to be a woman." In her keynotes, a personable Shannon discusses women's leadership, at home and abroad, and tells the harrowing but hopeful stories of the women she's met. With grace and depth, she explores the world's deadliest war through the intimate lens of friendship.

Lisa Shannon Speaker Profile

DEAN HAMER

Out in the Silence

Famous geneticist and gay activist Dean Hamer turns to film as a medium of hope

Is being gay a choice or is it something you're born with? This simple question is at the heart of the ongoing struggle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for full inclusion in American society. Dean Hamer first rose to prominence as the scientist who found the "gay gene," a discovery that revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality and dispelled the myth that sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice.His many appearances on TV to discuss that research led him to an interest in documentary filmmaking, and together with his husband Joe Wilson he founded Qwaves to produce documentaries about controversial and often overlooked scientific and social issues. Hamer and Wilson would go on to make their first feature film, Out in the Silence, a "stunning documentary" (Philadelphia Inquirer) recognized by the Sundance Institute as a story of "perseverance and dignity". In his talks, Hamer lays out research from a variety of disciplines to show us how our brains become wired for sexual desire, and how both heterosexual and homosexual orientation have contributed to human evolution.

Dean Hamer Speaker Profile

STEVEN PROTHERO

God is Not One

One of the world's foremost experts on religions discusses why the differences in religion matter

Are the world's religions different paths up the same mountain? This is doubtless the prevailing sentiment. But, as Stephen Prothero persuasively argues, this sentiment is naive, dangerous, and untrue. Prothero's expertise on religion is unparalelled, and his provocative book Religious Literacy landed Prothero on Oprah, The Daily Show,and even inspired a cover story for TIME Magazine.In his new book God is Not One,he provides a timely and indispensable guide to understanding the great religions, from Islam (which he ranks as the most influential) to Daoism (the least). What makes each tick? What are the similarities between them? But more importantly, what are the differences? It's on this last point -- the differences -- that Prothero offers the greatest illumination. He is convinced that the way to real and enduring interreligious understanding, especially after 9/11, lies not with "pretend pluralism," but with a clear-eyed knowledge of religious difference. Prothero has appeared on the Colbert Report, taught a course about religion on Twitter, and routinely uses New Yorker cartoons to get his point across. In other words, he can speak, with both deep intelligence and broad accessibility, about religion for a mass audience.

Steven Prothero Speaker Profile

GAYLE LEMMON at TEDxWOMEN

"If you're going to talk about jobs, then you have to talk about entrepreneurs," says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. "And if you're talking about entrepreneurs in conflict and post-conflict settings, then you must talk about women." Lemmon is the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and a Contributing Editor-at-Large for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She has devoted her life to shedding light on the resiliency of female entrepreneurs, and their remarkable power to reshape local economies. By recognizing and investing in these female breadwinners, Lemmon says, we can help grow economies of all development levels around the world.