Award-winning scholar and author Peter L. Berger was hailed as one of the most important modern American sociologists. Professor Emeritus of religion, sociology, and theology at Boston University, he was also director emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, which examines relationships between economic development and sociocultural change. Berger’s works, considered classics, include INVITATION TO SOCIOLOGY (1963), THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY (1966) with Thomas Luckmann, THE SACRED CANOPY (1967), and A RUMOR OF ANGELS (1969). More recently, IN PRAISE OF DOUBT, co-authored with noted sociologist and philosopher Anton C. Zijderveld, looks at out how we can survive the political, moral, and religious challenges raised by the extreme poles of relativism and fundamentalism, and was published in Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Korea and Italy. His latest study, ADVENTURES OF AN ACCIDENTAL SOCIOLOGIST, is both a series of personal reflections on the meaning of religion in society and other key intellectual questions that motivated his work and a witty memoir about how he stumbled into the field he so greatly influenced. Berger passed away in 2017 at the age of 88.

Peter L. Berger

Joseph Bien-Kahn is an award-winning journalist and editor based in Los Angeles, California. His features have been published by The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine, among other places. Today, he is Senior Editor at Esses Magazine, a new American Formula 1 quarterly, which he helped launch in 2024. His work is eclectic — he’s profiled ultrarunners, private firefighters, VW Bug racers, award-winning documentarians who’ve gone the way of the Netflix murder doc, and everything in between. He’s also done deep-dive investigative stories on an artist whose followers believed him to be the Third Coming of the Buddha and a 2013 wildfire that left conspiracy theories in its wake. The Buddha story, which ran in Rolling Stone in 2024, won Best Feature, Culture/Arts, at the 67th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards in June 2025.

Joseph Bien-Kahn

Charles Dellheim is an award-winning scholar and Professor of History at Boston University, where he co-founded and directed the Kilachand Honors College. His books include THE FACE OF THE PAST: THE PRESERVATION OF THE MEDIEVAL INHERITANCE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND and THE DISENCHANTED ISLE: MRS. THATCHER'S CAPITALIST REVOLUTION. His newest book BELONGING AND BETRAYAL: HOW JEWS MADE THE ART WORLD MODERN, an epic story that charts the fortunes and misfortunes of a small number of Jewish art dealers and collectors from the late-19th century to the present and spans both Europe and the United States, was a Kirkus Best of 2021 Non-Fiction Books, a TLS Book of the Year, and one of Artnet’s top twenty Best Books About Art and the Art World. Currently, he is researching a book on Freud.

Charles Dellheim

Thomas Drake is a former senior executive at the National Security Agency where he blew the whistle on the government’s post–9/11 secret mass surveillance programs, alleging they had led to fraud, waste and the widespread violations of citizens’ rights. In 2010 the Obama Administration indicted Drake, making him the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg to be charged with espionage and branding him an enemy of the state. Drake went free in a plea deal after the government’s case against him collapsed in 2011. He is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize, and a joint recipient with Jesselyn Radack of the 2011 Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award and the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. He is now dedicated to the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Drake

Multiple award-winning journalist and author of DATELINE HAVANA: THE REAL STORY OF U.S. POLICY AND THE FUTURE OF CUBA, THE IRAN AGENDA: THE REAL STORY OF U.S. POLICY AND THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS, and best-selling TARGET IRAQ: WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU (co-authored with Norman Solomon), Reese Erlich reported regularly for NPR, Latino USA, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, Dallas Morning News and Chicago Tribune. INSIDE SYRIA: THE BACKSTORY OF THEIR CIVIL WAR AND WHAT THE WORLD CAN EXPECT was reissued in paperback with a new foreword by Noam Chomsky in 2016 and THE IRAN AGENDA TODAY was published in 2018. Reese passed away in April 2021.

Reese Erlich

Feldman holds the Raymond Frankel Chair in Israeli Politics and Society at Brandeis University. Previously, he served as President of Sapir University, was a Senior Fellow and member of Harvard University’s Board—where he co-chaired the Crown-Belfer Middle East Project—and was Director of Brandeis' Crown Center for Middle East Studies. Between 1997 and 2005, he headed the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and, from 2001-2003, he served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. A new and revised edition of his seminal textbook, ARABS AND ISRAELIS: CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, co-authored with Abdel Monem Said Aly and Khalil Shikaki, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2022. A monograph by the three authors entitled ARABS AND ISRAELIS: FROM OCTOBER 7TH TO PEACEMAKING is forthcoming from the Crown Center for Middle East Studies.

Shai Feldman

Dan consults with companies and organizations worldwide on design and innovation. He holds degrees in design, ergonomics and biomechanics. In addition to his consulting, he co-founded 4B, a design collective focusing on opportunities for brands to better connect with the world’s almost-4-billion females. He also co-founded the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Dan created BASEBALL FIELD GUIDE with Paul Hamburger, an award-winning graphic designer. The book serves as an essential tool for both the baseball fanatic and novice. It has been published in the United States, Taiwan and Korea. The most recent edition was published by The Experiment in 2016, and updated in 2019. An updated and revised fourth edition published in April 2023.

Dan Formosa

Meagan Francis writes about family and motherhood. She contributes regularly to magazines and websites, including Parenting, Parents, Fit Pregnancy, American Baby, Disney’s Family.com, and Pregnancy, and writes a pregnancy blog for WEtv.com. Francis also writes about travel and lifestyle (focusing on the Midwest), health and mind-body wellness for magazines such as Natural Health, Yoga Journal, AAA Living, and Michigan BLUE. Meagan and her book, TABLE FOR EIGHT: RAISING A LARGE FAMILY IN A SMALL-FAMILY WORLD, were featured in the New York Times Style Section. She currently hosts the Mom Hour podcast, which has gone on to become a top-rated show in Apple’s Parenting category, and has been downloaded over 5 million times.

MEAGAN FRANCIS

Malcolm Friedberg is the Chief Marketing Officer of a Silicon Valley company and author of WHY WE'LL WIN: THE LEFT'S LEADING VOICES ARGUE THE CASE FOR AMERICA'S TOUGHEST ISSUES and WHY WE'LL WIN: THE RIGHT'S LEADING VOICES ARGUE THE CASE FOR AMERICA'S TOUGHEST ISSUES. In 2006, with a fulltime position as a marketing executive, he graduated from Loyola Law School’s evening program and is now licensed to practice law in the state of California. He is currently working on his first novel, a political thriller involving the murder of a Supreme Court Justice.

MALCOLM FRIEDBERG

Paul Hamburger, originally from New York City, is a recent transplant to sunny Los Angeles, where he works as a creative director. Growing up in the streets of Brooklyn, Paul was an accomplished player of stoopball. As a Mets fan, he is bitter and resentful toward the relative success of other local baseball organizations. He lives in the past, nostalgic for the glory days of the mid‑eighties. Paul created BASEBALL FIELD GUIDE with Dan Formosa, an award-winning industrial designer. The book serves as an essential tool for both the baseball fanatic and novice. It has been published in the United States, Taiwan and Korea. The new, revised third edition was published by The Experiment in 2016, and updated again in 2019. An updated and revised fourth edition published in April 2023.

Paul Hamburger

Randall Horton is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award, and the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction. He has been interviewed for on Fox News, NPR, CTNPR, CSPAN, the New Haven Register and countless journals, magazines, and radio shows. He sits on the Advisory Board of Pen America’s Pen Prison Writing Program. In 2018-2019 Randall was selected as Poet-in-Residence for the Civil Rights Corps in Washington DC, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system. Randall has toured, conducted workshops and lectured at numerous adult and juvenile detention centers across the nation to provide encouragement and hope for those entangled within the legal system. He is very interested in eradicating the language of incarceration that tends to re-criminalize those entangled in the legal system. Currently, Dr. Horton is the only tenured Full Professor at a United States university or college who has seven felony convictions. He is a member of the experimental performance group Heroes Are Gang Leaders which received the 2018 American Book Award in Oral Literature and their latest musical project, The Baraka Sessions, was named best vocal jazz album by NPR in 2019. Randall’s latest collection of poetry, {#289-128}, was published by the University of Kentucky Press in September 2020 and won an American Book Award. His memoir-in-essays, DEAD WEIGHT, which chronicles his improbable turn-around from drug smuggler to tenured professor and explores how the weight of felony convictions never leaves the returning citizen, was published as a lead title from Northwestern University Press in February 2022. Dr. Horton is a Professor of English at the University of New Haven.

Randall Horton

Dahr Jamail, recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, is an independent journalist who reports extensively from the Middle East. He is best known for his uncompromised reporting on the human cost of the Iraq war for the Iraqi people and American soldiers, the focus of his first two books, BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE: DISPATCHES FROM AN UNEMBEDDED JOURNALIST IN OCCUPIED IRAQ, and THE WILL TO RESIST: SOLDIERS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. His articles have appeared in The Independent, The Nation, Foreign Policy in Focus and many other national and international publications. Jamail is now based in Doha, Qatar, working as an Online News Producer for Al Jazeera English.

Dahr Jamail

Tatiana (she/her) is the author of the poetry collection NOCTURNE IN JOY (Sundress Publications, 2023). She’s an educator and expert facilitator who uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, and to cultivate healing. She’s an award-winning writer who’s received distinguished fellowships from Tin House, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The MacDowell Residency, and others. Tatiana completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College and teaches at Emerson College, GrubStreet, Catapult, and others. Find her work in or forthcoming at Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Pleiades, among others.

Tatiana Johnson-Boria

Jerry Lembcke, Associate Professor of Sociology at the College of the Holy Cross, is the author of CNN’S TAILWIND TALE: INSIDE VIETNAM'S LAST GREAT MYTH and THE SPITTING IMAGE: MYTH, MEMORY, AND THE LEGACY OF VIETNAM. His most recent book, HANOI JANE: WAR, SEX, AND FANTASIES OF BETRAYAL, looks at the reality of Jane Fonda’s civic engagement and representation during the Vietnam War years.

Jerry Lembcke

Chloe Maxmin, from rural Maine, is the Co-Director of Dirtroad Organizing, which supports rural leaders and organizers across the country. She also runs Begin Again Farm with her partner in Maine, growing organic vegetables for her community. Maxmin received an honors degree from Harvard College, where she co-founded Divest Harvard. She served in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018 and the Maine State Senate in 2020. She was the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine Senate. Maxmin is also the Co-Founder/Advisor at JustME for JustUS — a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice — and the co-author of DIRT ROAD REVIVAL, a long-term framework for rural political organizing drawing from on-the-ground experience engaging with rural moderate voters in Democratic campaigns, published by Beacon Press in May 2022. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloemaxmin.

Chloe Maxmin

Stuart Howell Miller is the author of the autobiographical PRAYER WARRIORS: THE TRUE STORY OF A GAY SON, HIS FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN FAMILY, AND THEIR BATTLE FOR HIS SOUL. He is the former president of the media and communications firm Bold New World and was previously the director of public affairs for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Currently, Stuart Miller is the CEO of Growing Generations, LLC., a fertility cryobank in Los Angeles.

STUART HOWELL MILLER

David Niose is an attorney, activist, and author of NONBELIEVER NATION: THE RISE OF SECULAR AMERICANS (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He is currently the legal director of the American Humanist Association, whose mission is to advance humanism, an ethical and life-affirming philosophy free of belief in any gods and other supernatural forces. Previously, he served as president of the Washington-based Secular Coalition for America, a group that lobbies on behalf of church-state separation and the rights of America’s atheists, agnostics, and humanists. As a lawyer David has advocated for secular government and the rights of nonbelievers in the courts, and was lead counsel in a major case heard by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the fall of 2013. His most recent book, FIGHTING BACK THE RIGHT: RECLAIMING AMERICA FROM THE ATTACK ON REASON, traces the emergence of a new progressive coalition committed to fighting for rational public policy and reversing the damage inflicted by decades of conservative dominance.

David Niose

Martin Philip is a baker and award-winning author. His book, BREAKING BREAD: A BAKER'S JOURNEY HOME IN 75 RECIPES, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and was awarded the 2018 Vermont Book Award as well as the best cookbook of 2018 by the New York Book Industry Guild. He is a MacDowell Fellow and a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory.

Martin Philip

Jesselyn Radack heads the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts. As National Security and Human Rights Director of WHISPeR, her work focuses on the issues of secrecy, surveillance, torture and drone attacks, where she has been at the forefront of challenging the government’s unprecedented “war on whistleblowers.” Among her clients are seven national security and intelligence community employees who have been investigated, charged, or prosecuted under the Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information, including Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, and John Kiriakou. She also represents clients bringing whistleblower retaliation complaints in federal court and other administrative bodies. Previously, she served for seven years as National Security and Human Rights Director at the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization, on the DC Bar Legal Ethics Committee and worked at the Justice Department for seven years, first as a trial attorney and later as a legal ethics advisor.

Jesselyn Radack

Heidi Raykeil’s first book entitled CONFESSIONS OF A NAUGHTY MOMMY — based on her popular LiteraryMama.com blog “Sex in the Suburbs” — was featured on the Today Show. Her second, LOVE IN THE TIME OF COLIC, co-authored with Ian Kerner, presents a sort of Adam’s Rib approach to the dialogue between couples regarding their relationship while raising young children.

Heidi Raykeil

Judith D. Schwartz, a longtime freelance writer whose work has appeared in a wide array of publications from Glamour and Redbook to the Christian Science Monitor and New York Times, lives with her family in Southern Vermont. The author of several books, including TELL ME NO LIES: HOW TO FACE THE TRUTH AND BUILD A LOVING MARRIAGE (co-authored) and THE THERAPIST'S NEW CLOTHES, Schwartz has an MA in Counseling Psychology and an MS from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her book COWS SAVE THE PLANET, a groundbreaking book on the pivotal role soil plays in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with (Chelsea Green, 2013), was named one of 2013’s top ten books on sustainability by Booklist. Her book WATER IN PLAIN SIGHT was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2016, and in paperback by Chelsea Green in 2019. Her newest book, THE REINDEER CHRONICLES, was published in August 2020 by Chelsea Green.

Judith D. Schwartz

Spencer R. Scott is a biologist and environmental writer focused on creating a more ecologically-minded future. He earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley and PhD in Bioengineering from UC San Diego. Once a research director at a cancer immunology startup he has several patents and scientific publications. He switched careers to climate activism in 2019 when he realized the magnitude of the problem and how he might help as an educator. He served as Paul Hawken’s Research Director on Regeneration, a book outlining the many regenerative solutions to climate change, and soon thereafter, joined the internationally recognized climate non-profit One Earth. At One Earth, he helps identify critical yet underfunded science-based climate solutions across renewable energy, nature conservation, and regenerative agriculture. In 2020, he and his husband co-founded a regenerative farm and climate education center, Solar Punk Farms, committed to demonstrating and spreading regenerative values. Through articles and podcasts his work has been featured in Sierra Club, Grist, NPR, Outside Magazine, Gen Dread, The Bold Italic, Go Gently, Noteworthy, Climate Town, and Here Magazine. His memoir, AS IF WE WERE STAYING, is forthcoming from HarperOne.

Spencer R. Scott

Although Peter Shapiro was trained as a labor historian at Berkeley in the early 1970s, he left academia and pursued a career with the Postal Service. When not moving the mail, he worked as a labor journalist. For ten years he was labor editor of Unity newspaper; subsequently he edited two union newspapers—the Oakland Postal Worker in the early 1990s and, following that, six years as editor of the B-Mike, organ of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 82 in Portland, Oregon. The B-Mike received numerous awards during his tenure as editor, including recognition in 2007 from the national union as the outstanding branch publication. Shapiro’s debut, SONG OF THE STUBBORN ONE THOUSAND, a groundbreaking history of one of the most significant strikes in American labor history, was published by Haymarket Books in 2016.

Peter Shapiro

Naghmeh Sohrabi is Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History and Director for Research at the Crown Center Institute for Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. Sohrabi grew up in Tehran and moved to the United States, where she attended MIT and Harvard. She is a recipient of the Berlin Prize and is currently working on a book about Iranian women from an insider’s perspective.

Naghmeh Sohrabi

Norman Solomon, an award-winning and nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, wrote the weekly “Media Beat” column from 1992-2009. His publications include MADE LOVE GOT WAR: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH AMERICA'S WARFARE STATE, WAR MADE EASY: HOW PRESIDENTS AND PUNDITS KEEP SPINNING US TO DEATH, and TARGET IRAQ: WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T TELL YOU (co-authored with Reese Erlich). Solomon’s articles and op-eds have appeared in a wide range of publications, including the Washington Post, LA Times, International Herald Tribune, Newsday, New York Times, and USA Today and he has been a guest on many popular media outlets, including PBS, CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN and NPR. Solomon is also the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts. His latest book, WAR MADE INVISIBLE: HOW AMERICA HIDES THE HUMAN TOLL OF ITS MILITARY MACHINE, was published by The New Press in June 2023.

Norman Solomon

Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA officer (who sued the spy agency for discrimination), and graduate of Washington University School of Law. His memoir, UNWANTED SPY — detailing his early childhood in Missouri to joining the CIA and to his recent incarceration in a Federal penitentiary where he was sent unjustly for almost three years on the false charge of leaking information to journalist James Risen — was released in October 2019 from Bold Type Books.

Jeffrey Sterling

Tina Sutton, a writer, researcher, and journalist for over 30 years, is currently a fashion columnist and feature writer for The Boston Globe. An expert on style, consumer, and lifestyle trends, she also co-authored two books geared to designers and graphic artists: COLOR HARMONY COMPENDIUM: A COMPLETE COLOR REFERENCE FOR DESIGNERS OF ALL TYPES and THE COMPLETE COLOR HARMONY: EXPERT COLOR INFORMATION FOR PROFESSIONAL COLOR RESULTS, which has been re-printed in nine languages. Tina Sutton’s THE MAKING OF MARKOVA was published in August 2013 in the US and the UK and was widely praised.

Tina Sutton

Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, is a family medicine and public health physician who specializes in women’s and children’s health. Her book, HELD TOGETHER: A SHARED MEMOIR OF MOTHERHOOD, MEDICINE, AND IMPERFECT LOVE (HarperOne, April 2025) weaves her story of learning to become a doctor while facing life-threatening pregnancy complications into the narratives of her patients, colleagues, and friends as they endure challenges in building and sustaining their own families too. These are stories of choice and of change, of fierce optimism in times of uncertainty, and of turning grief and regret into growth and purpose. These are the voices of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances. Dr. Thompson lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her free time wandering through green spaces, reading in cozy nooks, playing unreasonably complicated board games, repurposing found objects, and accompanying her husband and children on all-weather adventures near and far. Please visit her website to learn more about her professional background and current projects.

Rebecca N. Thompson

Canyon Woodward, a native of the Appalachian Mountain region of North Carolina, is a political campaign manager and climate activist. Canyon graduated from Harvard College in 2015. He has since worked on a number of political campaigns, while also organizing Harvard alumni to pressure the University to divest from fossil fuel companies. In 2018 Canyon was the Campaign Manager for Chloe Maxmin for Maine House, successfully flipping a rural Republican stronghold blue for the first time ever. Canyon is also an avid long distance trail runner, outdoor educator, and artist. DIRT ROAD REVIVAL, a long-term framework for rural political organizing drawing from on-the-ground experience engaging with rural moderate voters in Democratic campaigns, co-authored with Chloe Maxmin, was published by Beacon Press in May 2022. @canyonwoodward

Canyon Woodward

Anton Zijderveld held doctoral degrees in both sociology and philosophy and was Professor Emeritus at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Among his publications were THE ABSTRACT SOCIETY, ON CLICHÉ'S, REALITY IN A LOOKING GLASS, and IN PRAISE OF DOUBT: HOW TO HAVE CONVICTIONS WITHOUT BECOMING A FANATIC, co-authored with the late Peter Berger. Anton passed away in July 2022.

Anton Zijderveld