Society & Culture

Richburg is the Hong Kong bureau chief for the "Washington Post," the paper's former Africa bureau chief, and has won awards for his reporting, including being selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In his new book "Out of America," he reflects on his three years experience in Africa and questions the connections made between the identity of African-Americans and their African roots.

Saul Friedlander is the author of "Nazi Germany and the Jews, Vol. 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939." He examines the period looking at how Hitler's "murderous rage" and ideologies, converged with internal political pressures, and attitudes of German and European societies to create the Holocaust. Friedlander was born in Prague and was seven when his parents hid him in a Catholic seminary in France where he took on a new identity. His parents died in the Holocaust. Friedland now teaches at Tel Aviv University and at UCLA.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is the author of the controversial book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust." He offers evidence that ordinary Germans knowingly cooperated in the Holocaust, that they were motivated by anti-Semitism, not by economic hardship, coercion, or psychological pressures, as usually put forth by historians. Goldhagen is Associate Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University.

Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays are the authors of the new book, "The Language of Names: What We Call Ourselves and Why It Matters." Both have written previous books: Ms. Bernays is the author of eight novels, including the award-winning "Growing Up Rich" and "Professor Romeo," as well as numerous short stories. Mr. Kaplan won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography, "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain." He's also the General Editor of Barlett's Familiar Quotations.

Gates is the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Humanities and chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University as well as a staff writer for "The New Yorker." In his new book, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man," Gates records the thoughts of some of society's most revered black American men. The men debate the current state of black men and the difficulties of race and gender relations in American society.

Farrow has a new memoir called "What Falls Away." She's the daughter of actress Maureen O'Sullivan and writer John Farrow. As a young actress she starred in "Peyton Place" and "Rosemary's Baby." She was married to Frank Sinatra and then Andre Previn, and has 14 children, many of them adopted. Her 12-year relationship with Woody Allen ended with his affair with Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi.

Alda was the star of the TV show M*A*S*H, for which he won Emmys for acting, writing, and directing. He's in Woody Allen's latest "Everyone Says I Love You," and hosts Scientific American Frontiers on PBS.

A story for Valentine's Day from WBEZ's This American Life. Host Ira Glass talks about the drama of trying to be "just friends" with an ex-girlfriend.

Korn writes about health and medical issues for "Self," "the Chicago Tribune Magazine," and other publications. He has a new book "Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic," which tells of the protests and controversy surrounding the Lovejoy Surgicenter, an abortion clinic in Portland, Oregon.

Ousland was the first man to complete a solo expedition to both the North and South Poles. In November of 1996 he began a solo crossing of the Antarctic continent. He reached his destination on January 17, 1997. The 64-day trek covered 1,764 miles and was made unsupported, meaning Ousland carried all the necessary supplies for the journey.

Reporter for the Village Voice, Jennifer Gonnerman. In 1994 Planned Parenthood won a judgement against Operation Rescue, which had to sell off its office equipment to satisfy the judgement. A pro-choice activist bought many of those items in a public auction, including six computers. In one of the computers was a journal kept by one of Operation Rescue activists.

Shortly before her death, the film director's mother Catherine Scorsese published a cookbook of recipes called "Italianamerican: The Scorsese Family Cookbook." Catherine acted in, and cooked in (on and off-screen) for several of her son's movies. Martin Scorsese will talk about casting his mother in his films and about the new book.

Massiah is founder and Executive Director of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. He has won numerous awards for the films he has produced for public television. Messiah's latest project is a documentary featuring the late civil rights activist and NAACP co-founder W.E.B. DuBois, called "W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices." It premiers on PBS this month.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg reflects on our use of the term "postmodern" to describe everything from art to architecture. But Nunberg wonders when exactly modernism began and ended.

Rock is 26 years-old and grew up in Brooklyn. He got his start in show business performing stand-up comedy routines in Manhattan. He spent three years on "Saturday Night Live" and appeared in a few films, including the recent "Beverly Hills Ninja." He has a new comedy and talk-show series, "The Chris Rock Show," premiering February 7 on HBO.

A broadcast of the debate between playwright August Wilson and critic Robert Brustein over multiculturalism and the theater. The discussion is moderated by actress, playwright, and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith. Wilson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of the play "Fences," says the modern theater system jeopardizes the values of black actors because it is dominated by white society. Brustein, the American Repertory Theater's artistic director and the theater critic of "The New Republic," claims Wilson's ideas encourage black separatism.

As the Ebonics controversy continues into its second month, linguist Geoff Nunberg comments on standard English.

William Labov teaches at the University of Pennsylvania discusses Ebonics. He's been studying Black English for 30 years and traced the rules governing Black and White English. He also examined the differences between the two and explored the roots of the changes taking place in the languages.

Filmmaker Ken Burns is the director of "The Civil War" and "Baseball," the hit documentaries on PBS. The former was the network's highest rated series. Burns' newest project is the three-hour documentary, "Thomas Jefferson" about our third president, narrated by Ossie Davis.

Commentator Gerald Early considers the past and future of Fisk University.