Society & Culture

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Gay Metropolis" (Houghton Mifflin) by Charles Kaiser.

Cheryl Chase, executive director of the Intersex Society of North America. The society was set up to serve and provide peer support and medical information for hermaphroditic people who, at birth, exhibited some sexual organs of both genders. Chase was classified male at birth, but was "reassigned" female at 18 months.

Dr. Antoine Khoury (ann-TWAN COR-ee), head of the division of urology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He works with many parents of children born with ambiguous gender.

Barbara Neilson a social worker at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She works with children with congenital abnormalities, and their families.

Claire Tomalin, author of the biography "Jane Austen: A Life" (Knopf). The biography addresses Austen's world, family, and works, many of which in recent years have inspired popular film versions. Tomalin is also the biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft and Nelly Ternan.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Nightmare on Main Street" (Harvard) by Mark Edmundson about our culture's obsession with the Gothic.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg comments on efforts to preserve the French Language.

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. He's just written "The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel" (Simon and Shuster), a collection of three giant comic books, illustrated by artist William Frawley. Mizrahi has been called a "creative visionary" in today's fashion industry. In 1995 the documentary "Unzipped" was made about Mizrahi and his life.

Brigadier General William A. Moorman is Staff Judge Advocate for the Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. He talks about why Lt. Flinn was forced to resign and states the Air Force’s policy concerning sexual conduct.

Fashion historian Valerie Steele. Her new book outlines changes in the fashion world through the past half century, noting how the economy, global climate, and sexual politics affected designers' creations as well as the styles we wore. The book is called "Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now" (Yale University). Steele is Chief Curator at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Actress, screenwriter and director Kasi Lemmons. Her directorial debut is "Eve's Bayou." It stars Samuel L. Jackson and is now in theaters. The family drama takes place in a small Louisiana town in 1962, and is narrated by the younger daughter Eve, who must process family politics and her father's extramarital affairs at the age of ten. Lemmons has acted in the movies "The Silence of the Lambs," "Hard Target," "Candyman," and "Vampire's Kiss." (Interview by Kasi Lemmons)

Historian John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin, son and grandson of Buck Colbert Franklin. The two have co-edited his autobiography, "My Life and an Era" (Louisiana State University Press). Buck Colbert Franklin grew up on the frontier when Oklahoma was a new state, tri-racial in composition. He then went on to start a law practice in Tulsa. His son, John Hope Franklin, wrote "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans," and serves as the chairman of the Advisory Board on the President's Initiative on Race.

Writer David Shipler. A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America (Knopf) is his newest book. It looks closely at the ever present race question in the United States through interviews of folks across the country and analysis of stereotypes he found. Shipler is the author of Russia and won a Pulitzer Prize for Arab and Jew: Wounded Sprits in a Promised Land.

Costume designers Carol Oditz and Mark Bridges. Oditz planned the look for the film The Ice Storm, attempting to create surface tension for the movie through wardrobe. Bridges is responsible for collecting and coordinating the 70’s and 80’s styles seen throughout the movie Boogie Nights.

Film critic John Powers reviews three new foreign films: the French film "Nenette et Bonni," the Palestinian film "Chronicle of a Disappearance," and the film from China, "Happy Together" by director Wong Kar Wai.

Nonfiction writer Ptolemy Tompkins, son of New Age writer Peter Tompkins. Ptolemy has written a memoir, "Paradise Fever: Growing up in the Shadow of the New Age," (Avon) about growing up the son of Peter Tompkins, the author of the cult bestseller "The Secret Life of Plants" who was also a World War II spy. Ptolemy Tompkins is the author of several other nonfiction works.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on nouns to verbs.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War 2" has written a memoir about her own life, "Wait 'Til Next Year" about growing up in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s.

Director Wong Kar-Wai . The writer and director of 1994's "Chungking Express," 1995's "Fallen Angels" and this year's "Happy Together," Wong has worked in the Hong Kong film industry for 15 years, and is continuing to gain a strong American following. Wong was named "Best Director" at this year's Cannes film festival for "Happy Together." He is currently working on his next film, "Summer in Beijing."

NPR correspondent Jacki Lyden has written a memoir, entitled "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba" (Houghton Mifflin). It's a tale of her mother, who suffered from manic depression, often imagining herself as various historical and fictional characters. The book also touches on how her mother's illness influenced Jacki's fascination with "exotic" places, including the Middle East. Lyden was stationed in Baghdad as a correspondent during the Persian Gulf War.