Religion & Spirituality

Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld. He was the cinematographer for the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple," "Raising Arizona," "Miller's Crossing," and for "Misery." He's just made his directing debut with the new film, "The Addams Family."

Religion historian Martin Marty Marty, who teaches at the University of Chicago, is one of the foremost authorities on religion and society. He's the author of a four volume work on religion in the 20th century. His new work is a multi-volume look at fundamentalism. The first volume has just been published , and that's what he'll be talking about.

Hungarian writer Gyorgy Konrad. When he was 11 he bribed local police so that he and his sister could leave town and escape being deported. In 1974 he and a fellow writer were arrested in Budapest and imprisoned shortly for writing a sociological manuscript which was considered "subversive." Asked to leave the country, he decided a writer "should not emigrate, should not turn away from the risks of his profession." Konrad has written several novels, "The Case Worker," "The City Builder.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Bride Price," by Grete Weil. The book is half autobiography, and half biblical story. (published by David Godine)

Film critic Stephen Schiff says the new film, about a crime investigation in a Hassidic community, is a low point for its director -- but not so for star Melanie Griffith.

Smith will discuss her one-woman show, Fires in the Mirror, which is currently playing to sold-out audiences at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. It's about racial and ethnic tensions between African Americans and Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Film critic John Powers of the L.A. Weekly reviews "The Best intentions," a three-hour film based on Bergman's parents' troubled relationship.

Director of the Crown Heights Youth Collective in Brooklyn, Richard Green. A year ago there were race riots in Crown Heights spurred by the accidental death of a young black boy, and the subsequent murder of a Yeshiva student. During the disturbances, Green was outside with a bullhorn trying to keep the peace in the streets. Since then, he has launched a program to bring black and Jewish youth together, called the Crown Heights Youth Collective.

One of America's best known literary figures, Gore Vidal was once called "the Gentleman Bitch of American Letters." He has two new books out, "Screening History," part memoir and part film commentary, and "Live from Golgotha," about what would happen if the crucifixtion happened in the age of television. Vidal is also starring in a new movie,"Bob Roberts," directed by Tim Robbins. He joins Fresh Air to talk about his frustration with current American politics.

Essman will be one of the hosts on the new HBO comedy show, "One Night Stand." She appeared in the 1988 HBO comedy special, "On Location: Women of the Night II," and in the films, "Punchline, and Crocodile Dundee II."

Antin just made a silent film called "The Man Without a World." It's set in the late 1920s, in Poland, in a Jewish shtetl. The movie appears to be a made by the an imagined, exiled Russian film director, Yevgeny Antinov, and it's supposedly just been rediscovered in some forgotten archive.

Williams is a a writer and naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History. Born a Utah Mormon, Williams has written several books about the environment and the West, such as "Coyote's Canyon" and "Earthly Messengers." Her most recent book, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place," concerns her mother's unsuccessful battle with cancer and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge by the rising Great Salt Lake waters.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews Spike Lee's new movie, starring Denzel Washington. Schiff praises the film for how it gives each phase in X's life equal weight.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Moorish Spain," by British scholar Richard Fletcher, about the often violent culture clash in Medieval times.

Ze'ev Chafets is editor of "The Jerusalem Report," a news magazine published in Israel. He's an Israeli who grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, and was the director of the government press office under Prime Minister Menacham Begin. He talks with Terry about his perspectives on the peace process.

Reverend Youngblood is the leader of St. Paul Community Baptist Church in one of Brooklyn's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. Youngblood came to the church and turned it around from a dying institution to a thriving center for religious and community activity. It has created a school and, through innovative programs, brought young black men back into the church. St. Paul's has also, as part of a coalition with other churches, built housing in the area and replaced brothels and numbers joints. "Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church" by Samuel G.

Professor Robert Jay Lifton is distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College, City University of New York. He's been studying cults and fundamentalist groups for many years. Lifton will talk about the armed cult in Waco, Texas run by David Koresh of the Branch Davidians--how typical they are, and what can be done to deal with them.

Former National Security Adviser to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski has written a new book about the state of global politics, called "Out of Control." He warns we must change our values and realize our global interdependence.

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Terry talks with Rafael Scharf. He's compiled a new book of photographs, "In The Warsaw Ghetto Summer 1940." The photographs were taken one summer day in 1941 by German soldier and have never been published before. Scharf was born in Poland, but left the country shortly before World War II. He is one of the founders of "The Jewish Quarterly," a London literary and political magazine. Many of his relatives were killed during the Holocaust.

Ghosh was born in Calcutta and studied in India, Britian, and Egypt. He has a new novel, "In An Antique Land," which tells the story of two Indians in Egypt: a 12th century slave who Ghosh had read about, and Ghosh himself. He'll talk with Terry about the current violence in India between Muslims and Hindus.