Richard Gilman, who died Saturday at age 83, was a writer and professor at the Yale School of Drama. Ben Brantley of The New York Times writes, "Mr. Gilman was one of a breed of philosopher-critics... who came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. They located in modern drama the elements of abstraction, alienation and absurdity that had long been at the core of discussions of other forms of art and literature." In this archive interview from 1987, Gilman recounts his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism and then to atheism.
David Bianculli reviews a new episode of the popular British crime series, Cracker. The program was originally produced in the 1990s, and Robbie Coltrane returns to star as Edward Fitzgerald, an abrasive criminal psychologist. The new two-hour show, Cracker: A New Terror, airs at 9 p.m. on BBC America.
For his new book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination, entertainment expert Neal Gabler was given complete access to the Disney archives. His biography begins when Disney was just a glimmer of an idea, and ends at the entrance to the Walt Disney mausoleum.
Julia Sweeney is currently performing a one-woman show called "Letting Go of God" at the off-off-Broadway theater in Manhattan. A Saturday Night Live cast alum, Sweeney also wrote and performed the 1996 Broadway show "God Said, Ha!" Her films include Pulp Fiction, Clockstoppers and It's Pat, based on her gender-confused character on SNL.
Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter and Independence Day, has written a new novel entitled The Lay of the Land. Independence Day was the first book to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Gambian attorney Fatou Bensouda is the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which deals with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The court's first case concerns crimes involving child soldiers. She has served as Attorney General, Secretary of State and Minister of Justice for The Gambia. She is also an authority on gender and violent crimes against women.
Kenya political activist Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Her new memoir is called Unbowed. She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has planted over thirty million trees across Kenya. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya's parliament, and in 2003 was appointed assistant minister for the environment.
Film critic David Edelstein reviews Infamous, a new film about Truman Capote based on the book by George Plimpton. Toby Jones and Sigourney Weaver star in the film, which covers the same ground as last year's Oscar-winning film Capote.
Lou Dubose's latest book is about Vice President Dick Cheney. Dubose, a former writer for the Texas Observer, has covered Texas politics for more than two decades. He's also the co-author (with Molly Ivins) of two books about George W. Bush, and has also written about Tom DeLay and Karl Rove.
Journalist Tina Cassidy was inspired to write about cultural birth practices after hearing many accounts of birth experiences. Cassidy is a former reporter for the Boston Globe and writes for other publications including The New York Times Magazine.
Rapper and producer Andre Benjamin's new project is an animated series for the Cartoon Network called Class of 3000. Benjamin (Andre 3000) is half of the Grammy-winning hip-hop duo Outkast. The group is best known for the single "Hey Ya!" from the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Benjamin also appears in the films Idlewild, Four Brothers, and Be Cool.
British journalist Stephen Grey writes about security issues and Iraq. His work appears in The Sunday Times of London, The New York Times, the Guardian, and The Atlantic Monthly. He says that dozens of terror suspects are still being held in secret prisons and interrogated by the CIA despite President Bush's declaration that the CIA is no longer doing so. Grey's new book is Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin's Press).
In The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, author Daniel Mendelsohn unearths and reconstructs the lives of six people in his family who died in the Holocaust. Maureen Corrigan has a book review.
H. James Towey is the former director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He is David Kuo's former boss. He responds to Kuo's criticisms of the Bush administration's follow through on the initiatives. Towey is now president of the Benedictine Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Penn.
