News & Events Writer and Activist Todd Gitlin To Speak at Amherst College March 6

February 13, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University and one of the nation’s leading thinkers about the media, will speak on “Whose Flag Is It? Liberal Patriotism in a Conservative Age” at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 6, in the Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Office of the President, Gitlin’s talk is free and open to the public.

Gitlin has degrees in three different subjects: mathematics (B.A., Harvard), political science (M.A., Michigan) and sociology (Ph.D., Berkeley). His political activism began in the student movement of the ’60s, and he continued to write for the so-called underground press.

Gitlin is the author of many books, chiefly on media and recent America, starting with Uptown: Poor Whites in Chicago (co-author, 1970), The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the Left (1980), Inside Prime Time (1983), The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987), The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars (1995), Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (2002), Letters To a Young Activist (2003) and The Intellectuals and the Flag (2006). He also has written a book of poetry, Busy Being Born (1974), and two novels, The Murder of Albert Einstein (1992) and Sacrifice (1999).

He contributes to many newspapers and magazines, is a member of the editorial board of Dissent and writes online regularly at TPMcafe.com.

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