Lisa Randall is an expert on particle physics, string theory, and cosmology. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, she has been a tenured professor at Princeton, MIT, and Harvard, and she is one of the most highly cited physicists in her field. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Tracking the arc of discovery from early 20th-century physics to today's particle physics and string theory, Randall's "WARPED PASSAGES" leads readers on a fascinating journey into the idea that there may be an extra dimension--in fact another universe--just inches away.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.

Currently professor of sustainable development and of health policy and management at Columbia University and director of its Earth Institute, Sachs is one of the world’s leading international economists and crusaders against
the scourge of global poverty. "THE END OF POVERTY" is a a landmark exploration of the way out of extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.

Dr. Hamoudi's book, "HOWLING IN MESOPOTAMIA", is a personal memoir of his time in Iraq, between 2003 and 2005. Dr. Hamoudi lived with his grandmother in a nondescript house in an average neighborhood in Baghdad, and in the memoir, he recounts the lives and experiences of himself, and those in his family, friends, colleagues and other acquaintances in Iraq during those difficult years, beyond the protected confines of the Green Zone.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.

Profusely illustrated with archival images, the groundbreaking "GAY AMERICA "reveals how gay men and women have lived, worked, and loved for the past 125 years.

Beginning with the Victorian period and following with five more chapters covering the 20th and 21st centuries through 2006, Alsenas prefaces each historically accurate section with a true story told from a personalized (or fictionalized) point of view, such as the notorious 1892 Memphis murder of Freda Ward by her lover, Alice Mitchell. This technique, combined with abundant archival photos and the author's accessible writing style, makes the pages fly by almost as if reading a long, compelling story.

In essays, interviews, and provocative imagery, "MASSIVE CHANGE" explores the changing force of design in the contemporary world, and expands the definition of design to include the built environment, transportation technologies, revolutionary materials, energy and information systems, and living organisms.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.

Colson Whitehead was born and raised in New York City. His first novel, "The Intuitionist" was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway. His next work, "John Henry Days", was a "New York Times" Editor's Choice, won the Young Lions Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle and the Pulitzer Prize. Whitehead has also been the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award and a MacArthur Grant. His writing has appeared in the The New York Times, The Village Voice, Salon, and Newsday.

Whitehead's most recent book "APEX HIDES THE HURT" is a brisk, comic tour de force about identity, history, and the adhesive bandage industry--in a brilliant and wry satire of contemporary culture.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.

A native of Washington, D.C., Alex Beam has been a journalist for almost thirty years, working in New York, Los Angeles, Moscow and Boston. Since 1988, Beam has been a columnist for Boston Globe's Living/Arts page.

The Great Books of Western Civilization began as an educational movement in the 1950s and 60s, and evolved into a successful marketing idea--a million Americans bought the books from door-to-door salesmen. in "A GREAT IDEA AT THE TIME", Beam explores the Great Books mania, in this entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular.

Alex will be joined by Daniel Born, Eva Brann and Earl Shorris to discuss The Great Books Movement.

This event is part of the 19th annual Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information, point and click on the link above.