Pulitzer Prize winner to discuss Assange, Snowden, Manning in UM lecture

The second half of the University of Montanas 2013-14 Presidents Lecture Series will begin with a lecture from prolific author, social critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges.

He will analyze Americas national security state and the meaning of revelations by high-profile leakers such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning formerly Bradley Manning for the future of our democracy.

The lecture, titled Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, PRISM, Edward Snowden and National Security, will be held at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 3, in the University Center Ballroom.

Hedges will deliver a seminar earlier the same day titled The Death of the Liberal Class and the Crisis of the American Political System. It will be held from 3:10 to 4:30 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building, Room 123.

Both events are free and open to the public.

Hedges, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades, has written extensively about Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Granta, the New Statesman, Harpers, Mother Jones, The Nation, Adbusters and the New York Review of Books.

In 2002, he shared a Pulitzer Prize as part of the team of reporters at the New York Times that covered global terrorism. He currently writes a weekly column for truthdig.com and is a senior fellow at the Nation Institute in New York.

Hedges most recent books include The Death of the Liberal Class, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, which is a collection of Truthdig columns about the most controversial issues of the day: Americas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American empire, the Middle East and the crisis of the American political system.

The Presidents Lecture Series at UM consists of 10 talks on vital topics by distinguished guest speakers throughout the academic year. For more information, visit umt.edu/president/events/lectures/ or call UM history professor Richard Drake at 243-2981.

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Pulitzer Prize winner to discuss Assange, Snowden, Manning in UM lecture