March 9, 2006

Newsmakers highlight spring Crain lineup

The spring Crain Lecture Series will bring a powerful mix of newsmakers and news analysts to Northwestern, including a former executive editor of the New York Times; a sociologist who questions the methodology of geneticists when searching for links between disease, genes and race; and the editor of The New Yorker.

Sponsored by the Medill School of Journalism, the popular Crain Lecture Series aims to provide a range of perspectives on news and current events. Free and open to the public, the lectures take place in McCormick Tribune Center Forum. A schedule follows:

Monday, April 17, 4 p.m., Troy Duster, professor of sociology at New York University, Chancellor’s Professor at University of California, Berkeley and author of “Backdoor to Eugenics,” will speak on “Race, Disease and Crime-Fighting: The Molecular Reinscription of Race in Clinical Medicine and Forensic Science.”

Thursday, April 20, 3:30 p.m., Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times from 1994 to 2001, will present “Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop.” The lecture about his book of the same name will describe his search for family history and how it took him to landmark historical markers, including the Scottsboro trials, Zionist movement, Hollywood blacklist, McCarthyism and Mississippi’s 1964 “freedom summer.”

Monday, May 8, 4 p.m., Medill alum and veteran columnist, human rights activist and author Kuldip Nayar will discuss “The Future of India.” Since 1985, Nayar has written a syndicated column that is translated into 14 languages and appears in 80 newspapers and magazines, including some of India’s most influential publications.

Thursday, May 11, 3:30 p.m., The New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick will take part in “A Conversation on Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker.” He has written more than 100 New Yorker articles, including profiles of Ralph Ellison, Katherine Graham, Pope John Paul II, Michael Jordan, Alekasandr Solzhenitsyn and George Stephanopoulos.