Society & Culture

Author, and advocate for children, Geoffrey Canada. He is President of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families in New York City. He's written a new book about the crisis among young boys, and the need to redefine their sense of manhood. He writes that "Our belief about maleness, the mythology that surrounds being male, has led many boys to ruin. The image of male as strong is mixed with the image of male as violent." Canada's new book is "Reaching Up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America" (Beacon Press).

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the controversies of the 1950s over the grammar of commercials.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the word "cult."

Azeezaly Jaffer is Executive Director of Stamp Services for the U.S. Postal Service. This branch has introduced the popular stamp collecting program which features pop-culture icons on the stamps. Some of the Post Office’s most popular stamps include: Elvis Presely, Marilyn Monroe, and Bugs Bunny.

Historian Hugh Thomas has written a new major work on the history of slavery, "The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870" (Simon & Schuster). It's based on his thirty years of research in archives and libraries throughout the world. His book includes written accounts, published for the first time, and an examination of the traders and the countries who profited most. Kirkus Reviews calls the book "A masterful survey." Thomas is a former professor of history and Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies in Britain.

Michael Barson is the author of the new book "Teenage Confidential: An Illustrated History of the American Teen (Chronicle Books, illustrated by Steven Heller). The book traces the evolution of the "teen" and the concept of the "teenager" which didn't exist before World War 2. The book also collects teenage artifacts, like movie posters, magazine covers, and advertisements.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Gay Metropolis" (Houghton Mifflin) by Charles Kaiser.

Barbara Neilson a social worker at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She works with children with congenital abnormalities, and their families.

Dr. Antoine Khoury (ann-TWAN COR-ee), head of the division of urology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He works with many parents of children born with ambiguous gender.

Cheryl Chase, executive director of the Intersex Society of North America. The society was set up to serve and provide peer support and medical information for hermaphroditic people who, at birth, exhibited some sexual organs of both genders. Chase was classified male at birth, but was "reassigned" female at 18 months.

Claire Tomalin, author of the biography "Jane Austen: A Life" (Knopf). The biography addresses Austen's world, family, and works, many of which in recent years have inspired popular film versions. Tomalin is also the biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft and Nelly Ternan.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Nightmare on Main Street" (Harvard) by Mark Edmundson about our culture's obsession with the Gothic.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg comments on efforts to preserve the French Language.

Brigadier General William A. Moorman is Staff Judge Advocate for the Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. He talks about why Lt. Flinn was forced to resign and states the Air Force’s policy concerning sexual conduct.

Fashion historian Valerie Steele. Her new book outlines changes in the fashion world through the past half century, noting how the economy, global climate, and sexual politics affected designers' creations as well as the styles we wore. The book is called "Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now" (Yale University). Steele is Chief Curator at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Actress, screenwriter and director Kasi Lemmons. Her directorial debut is "Eve's Bayou." It stars Samuel L. Jackson and is now in theaters. The family drama takes place in a small Louisiana town in 1962, and is narrated by the younger daughter Eve, who must process family politics and her father's extramarital affairs at the age of ten. Lemmons has acted in the movies "The Silence of the Lambs," "Hard Target," "Candyman," and "Vampire's Kiss." (Interview by Kasi Lemmons)

Historian John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin, son and grandson of Buck Colbert Franklin. The two have co-edited his autobiography, "My Life and an Era" (Louisiana State University Press). Buck Colbert Franklin grew up on the frontier when Oklahoma was a new state, tri-racial in composition. He then went on to start a law practice in Tulsa. His son, John Hope Franklin, wrote "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans," and serves as the chairman of the Advisory Board on the President's Initiative on Race.

Costume designers Carol Oditz and Mark Bridges. Oditz planned the look for the film The Ice Storm, attempting to create surface tension for the movie through wardrobe. Bridges is responsible for collecting and coordinating the 70’s and 80’s styles seen throughout the movie Boogie Nights.

Writer David Shipler. A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America (Knopf) is his newest book. It looks closely at the ever present race question in the United States through interviews of folks across the country and analysis of stereotypes he found. Shipler is the author of Russia and won a Pulitzer Prize for Arab and Jew: Wounded Sprits in a Promised Land.