Spring/Summer 2005 Issue: Volume 3, Issue 2
Authors
Sherman Alexie: Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian from Wellpinit, Washington, a town on the Spokane Indian reservation, who currently resides in Seattle with his wife and two sons. Shortly after the publication of his first book, The Business of Fancydancing—a collection of poetry and stories—Mr. Alexie was described as “one of the major lyric voices of our time” in the New York Times Book Review, which selected the book as a “1992 Notable Book of the Year.” In that same year Mr. Alexie received a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. His first collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, published in 1994, was a citation winner for the PEN/Hemmingway Award for Best First Fiction. Mr. Alexie’s first screenplay, Smoke Signals, based on his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy. He has published a total of sixteen books to date and his work is included in The Best American Short Stories 2004 and Pushcart Prize XXIX of the Small Presses. Mr. Alexie’s short story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” was selected by juror Ann Patchett as her favorite story for The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005.
Katrina Anderson: Katrina Anderson earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1997 and received her J.D. summa cum laude from Seattle University in 2004, where she served as Editor in Chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. Prior to and during law school, her work focused on protecting and promoting human rights in Southeast Asia. After graduation, she spent three months in Cambodia working as a legal advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, where she joined efforts by Cambodian researchers to document the crimes committed against women under the Khmer Rouge regime. Beginning in the Fall of 2005, she will pursue an LL.M. degree at American University’s International Legal Studies Program, where she will focus on women’s rights and transitional justice.
William W. Bennett: Reverend William W. Bennett received his Master of Divinity from Howard University School of Divinity in 1994. Since he was ordained in 1992 by the Mt. Calvary Holy Church of America, Reverend Bennett has pastored and taught bible in various church settings. He is currently an associate minister at the historic Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and serves as a leader of the church’s Prayer Warrior training program. He also works as Special Counsel to the Office of Administrative Litigation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Reverend Bennett holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and received his B.A. in Economics from Harvard College. He is married to the former Alfreda Robinson, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School. They have two young adult children.
Matthew J. Burnett: Matthew J. Burnett earned his J.D. cum laude from Seattle University School of Law, where he served as a content development editor and an article editor for the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. Mr. Burnett has worked for the Refugee Rights Program at the East Bay Sanctuary in Berkeley, California; the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle, Washington; and the Gender Research and Advocacy Project at the Legal Assistance Center in Windhoek, Namibia. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Z. M. Yacoob of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Mr. Burnett earned his B.A. cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with distinction in philosophy and in the Program in Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) from the University of Washington in 1999.
Noam Chomsky: Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics in 1955 from the University of Pennsylvania. Between 1951 and 1955, Mr. Chomsky was a junior fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. The major theoretical viewpoints of his doctoral dissertation appeared in the monograph Syntactic Structure, in 1957. This formed part of a more extensive work, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, circulated in mimeograph in 1955 and published in 1975. Mr. Chomsky joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor. In 1976, he was appointed Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Mr. Chomsky has lectured at many universities in the United States and abroad and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards. He has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and U.S. foreign policy. His most recent books include, A New Generation Draws the Line; New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; Rogue States; 9-11; Understanding Power; On Nature and Language; Pirates and Emperors, Old and New; Chomsky on Democracy and Education; Middle East Illusions; and Hegemony or Survival.
Courtney P. Erwin: Courtney P. Erwin received her J.D. from Seattle University School of Law in May 2005, where she served as the Editor in Chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. Ms. Erwin has worked for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the Public Interest Law Group. Prior to law school, Ms. Erwin worked with indigenous youth on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. She received her M.A. in Islamic Studies from the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, where she focused her work on the relationship between Islamic law and international human rights standards. Ms. Erwin received her B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service where she concentrated on Culture and Politics and received a certificate in Islam and Muslim-Christian Understanding. She continues to research and explore cross-cultural dialogue between Western and Muslim societies.
Gordon Fellman: Gordon Fellman grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and studied sociology at Antioch College and Harvard University. He began teaching in the Sociology Department at Brandeis University in 1964. Since 1992, he has chaired the undergraduate interdisciplinary program Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies at Brandeis. Dr. Fellman cofounded the Boston Nuclear Study Group, which in 1990 published the book The Nuclear Seduction: Why the Arms Race Doesn't Matter and What Does. A frequent visitor to Israel, Dr. Fellman has published widely on Jewish and Israel-related topics. In 1991 he coproduced a half-hour video called This Is the Moment: Israelis and Palestinians Talking Peace. Dr. Fellman recently published a book titled Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival, which discusses the possibility of major paradigm shift, from adversary relations to those of mutuality, in today’s society. He organized Seven Weeks on Tibet, a series of sixteen cultural, religious, and spiritual programs that preceded the Dalai Lama’s visit to Brandeis May 8–9, 1998. He is also the executive producer of a one hundred-minute video made by Award Productions, Not Just for Tibet . . . for Justice, on those two remarkable days at Brandeis.
Paul Harris: Paul Harris teaches Guerrilla Law at New College’s public-interest law school in San Francisco. After graduating with a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, he clerked for a federal judge. Mr. Harris then cofounded the San Francisco Community Law Collective, a multiracial law office where lawyers and secretaries were partners with equal salaries and equal decision-making power. He has been written up as one of the best criminal trial lawyers in America and has served as president of the National Lawyers Guild. Mr. Harris has written the critically acclaimed nonfiction book Black Rage Confronts the Law and a recent legal thriller In the Midnight Hour. He can be contacted at www.guerrillalaw.com.
Carol M. Kaplan: Carol M. Kaplan was born and raised in South Africa, where she received her undergraduate degree and worked in professional theater before coming to the United States to study at the Yale School of Drama. She obtained an M.F.A. in playwriting from Yale, and subsequently taught playwriting at Yale University and at New York University. Her plays have been produced in South Africa and in the United States. Ms. Kaplan has also written for film and television. She has cowritten two television films that were broadcast on ABC TV and the Family Channel, respectively, and has received numerous awards and award nominations for her writing. In 1997, she indulged a long-held interest in the law and enrolled in the J.D. program at NYU Law School where she served as Editor in Chief of the Law Review and was a member of the Order of the Coif. She received a J.D. degree in 2000 and then worked as an associate in the entertainment department at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP, for three and a half years. Currently, she is an attorney in the business and legal affairs department at MTV Networks.
Rhonda V. Magee: Rhonda V. Magee is Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco, and was Visiting Professor of Law at the College of William and Mary School of Law (fall 2004), where she received an Outstanding Faculty Contribution award from the Black Law Students’ Association. She earned her J.D., M.A. (sociology), and B.A. (with distinction) from the University of Virginia. She teaches Torts, Insurance Law, and a course on Race, Law and Policy. Prior to entering academia, she practiced law in San Francisco. Her articles and essays have appeared in several publications, including the law reviews of the University of Virginia and the University of Alabama. Her articles have also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Ms. Magee is dedicated to exploring the interrelationships between law, philosophy, and notions of justice and humanity, with a commitment to listening to and retelling the stories of the interconnections between law and the lived experiences of traditionally marginalized and structurally subordinated people, and to thinking, writing, and teaching with love.
Magdaleno Rose-Avila: Magdaleno “Leno” Rose-Avila is executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a Seattle-based organization that protects the rights of immigrants and their families. He has spent his life working on behalf of civil and human rights. His activism began at the University of Colorado in 1968 when he joined black students and Students for a Democratic Society in protests over the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Organizing for Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers Union in 1970, Mr. Rose-Avila learned how to live a life of nonviolence. This helped when he founded Homies Unidos, a binational organization for gang violence prevention and youths at risk. He was a Peace Corps country director in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Micronesia. He has worked for Amnesty International, the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, Moratorium 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Colorado Migrant Council, and the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Rose-Avila currently serves on the national board of Amnesty International.
Michael Shank: Michael Shank is currently the Director of Public Affairs for World Culture Open, an international NGO promoting the role of arts and culture as an alternative vehicle for diplomacy in international peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts. Additionally, as the founder and director of the International Forum on Communication and Culture, Mr. Shank provides communications and conflict resolution training for government officials and civil society leaders in the Philippines, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Syria, South Korea, and the United States. Within the United States, Mr. Shank serves as a visiting lecturer, teaching university-level courses on conflict resolution, nonviolent communication, and the role of media in social change initiatives. Mr. Shank holds a master’s degree in Conflict Transformation and a bachelor’s degree in Political Theatre and recently authored and published a book on theater-based conflict resolution strategies. As a media strategist, his campaigns on environmental and social justice issues have secured news stories with the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, National Public Radio, The New York Times, USA Today, CBS News, and Yahoo News, featuring spokespersons like Dave Matthews, REM, Wyclef Jean, and the National Football League.
Michael Smith: Michael Smith is an anthropologist and author. For the past twelve years, he has directed the asylum program at the East Bay Sanctuary in Berkeley, California, working with law students from many different universities. The East Bay Sanctuary successfully represents clients from all over the world. Mr. Smith has written two books of short stories about refugees entitled Sanctuary Stories and The Nun and the Anarchist.
Brenda K. White: Brenda K. White grew up in Hazard, Kentucky, but has lived in Somerset, Kentucky, for the past twenty-one years. She has master’s degrees in social work and English. Since 1998, Ms. White has written and published poetry, short stories, essays, and articles in various journals and anthologies. She is currently working on an outdoor drama about the life of Princess Cornblossom, leader of the last tribe of the Cherokees to live in southeastern Kentucky. Ms. White lives with her husband and their seven dogs. She enjoys Tai Chi and hiking.
Howard Zinn: Howard Zinn is a distinguished historian, professor, political theorist, social activist, playwright, and author. He has taught at Spelman College and Boston University. He has also been a history fellow at Harvard University and a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. Professor Zinn has authored over twenty books and plays. His seminal book, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to the Present, is widely used in college classrooms.