Andrew Arato (Ph.D. History, University of Chicago, 1975) is Dorothy Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory at the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of New School University. Professor Arato is one of the world's leading theorists of civil society, as one of the foremost authorities on the Frankfurt School, the history of social thought, and theories of social movements. He is most well known for Civil Society and Political Theory (co-authored with Jean Cohen), which has become perhaps the definitive text in civil society scholarship throughout the social sciences. He is also author or editor of seven other books, including From Neo-Marxism to Democratic Theory (1993), Habermas on Law and Democracy: Critical Exchanges (1998), and most recently, Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy (1999).

As Jeremi Suri has noted, Tom Hayden is "one of the most influential and recognized activists of the 1960s. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, he composed the 'agenda for a generation' that became a guiding charter for Students for a Democratic Society. He directed an anti-poverty project in Newark, New Jersey, protested the Vietnam War, and stood trial for disrupting the 1968 Democratic Convention. Since the 1960s, Hayden has served in the California legislature, married and divorced Jane Fonda, and become involved in the peace process in Northern Ireland." His most recent books include IRISH HUNGER: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE LEGACY OF THE FAMINE (an important collection of essays which he edited in 1997) and IRISH ON THE INSIDE, published last year by Verso Press.

    Lucius T. Outlaw is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the African American Studies Program at Vanderbilt University. His principal areas of specialization are African Philosophy, African-American Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, the History of Philosophy, and Social and Political Philosophy. Professor Outlaw is the author of over fifty articles, and On Race and Philosophy (Routledge, 1996). He is currently working on a volume titled In Search of Critical Social Theory in the Interest of Black Folk.

Nicolás Lynch (Ph.D., Sociology, New School for Social Research) is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Ph.D. Program in Social Sciences at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Perú. Professor Lynch is also a political columnist in the daily La República in Lima. He has published several books, including Los jóvenes rojos de San Marcos, La transición conservadora, Una tragedia sin héroes, and El pensamiento arcaico en la educación peruana. Professor Lynch was formerly Minister of Education, Political Advisor to the President of the Republic of Perú, and President of the Peruvian Sociological Association.

Christopher Bertram is Reader in Social and Political Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, UK. Professor Bertram’s main research interests are in modern social contract theory, theories of justice (especially global distributive justice), and public justification. He is the author of Rousseau and the Social Contract (Routledge, 2003), Vice-President of the Rousseau Association, and until recently, editor of Imprints: A Journal of Analytical Socialism.

Si Kahn has worked for 40 years as a civil rights, labor, and community organizer. He is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, a 25-year old progressive non-profit organization that works to abolish for-profit private prisons, jails, and detention centers. He is the author of How People Get Power, Organizing: A Guide for Grassroots Leaders, and most recently The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy (with Elizabeth Minnich). A songwriter and musician, Kahn is releasing his 15th CD Blood From Stones concurrently with The Fox in the Henhouse.

Elizabeth Minnich (Ph.D., Philosophy, New School University) is Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She has worked for 40 years as a university professor and administrator, author, speaker, workshop leader, consultant, and scribe. A feminist philosopher, she has lectured at over 150 colleges and universities and is the author of Transforming Knowledge (Temple, 1990) and The Fox in the Henhouse.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is a leading human rights activist in the non-violent struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. A medical doctor, he is an outspoken advocate for the development of Palestinian civil society and grassroots democracy and an organizer of international solidarity presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He founded and served for twenty- five years as President of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, leaving that post to run for Palestinian President in 2005. He remains on the Board of Directors. In 2002, Dr. Barghouthi co-founded Al Mubadara (the Palestinian National Initiative) along with Edward Said, Haider Abdel-Shafi and Ibrahim Dakak, and currently serves as its Secretary General. An alternative to both the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party and the fundamentalism of groups like Hamas, Al Mubadara aims to build the institutional framework of Palestinian civil society and promote the principles of internal democracy and good governance. It tries to strengthen ties between Palestinians everywhere, to mobilise mass non-violence and international solidarity as the preferred means of resisting the Israeli Occupation, and to make the Palestinian story visible in the international news media. In 2006, Dr. Barghouthi was elected to the Palestinian Parliament as an independent candidate.

Biography

Born in Jerusalem in 1954, Dr. Barghouthi trained as a medical doctor in the former Soviet Union, with postgraduate work in Jerusalem and at Stanford University. Dr. Barghouthi has led the introduction of modern concepts of health care in Palestine. From 1978 till 1988, he worked at Jerusalem’s Maqassed Hospital in neurosurgery, internal medicine, cardiology, and ultimately as Chief Physician of Primary Healthcare Clinics.

In 1979, Dr. Barghouthi co-founded the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), a non-profit NGO of which he was later elected President. PMRS aims to provide Palestinians, particularly vulnerable groups such as women, children, the elderly, the disabled, and those living in isolated areas, with essential healthcare services. PMRS today is one of the largest providers of primary healthcare services throughout the Palestinian Territory, with a staff of 380 health professionals and 38,000 volunteers. It currently works in 495 Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps, providing services to 1.3 million Palestinians each year. The PMRS has pioneered the development of healthcare models such as the Community-Based Rehabilitation program, aimed at providing rehabilitation services to disabled persons and facilitating their integration into their communities. The PMRS has also been at the forefront of efforts to target the most vulnerable sectors of Palestinian society, through its Women’s and Child Health services.

At the height of the first Intifada in 1989, Dr. Barghouthi co-founded the Health Development Information and Policy Institute (HDIP), a health policy think-tank. HDIP also houses the Palestine Monitor, a clearing-house for the 95-member Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO). Launched at the beginning of the current Intifada, the Palestine Monitor conveys the viewpoints of Palestinian civil society to the press and international community. Its website acts as one of the key information sources on the conflict, with more than 1.5 million hits per month.

Born in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan to proud members of the U.S. Communist Party, John Ross grew up in a lively cultural ambiance informed by jazz, abstract expressionist painting, radical politics, and Beat poetry – Ross was a younger member of the Beat Generation, reading his poetry in Greenwich Village bars with the great bass player Charles Mingus.

At 19, Ross set out on the road, following the Beat trail that Burroughs and Kerouac and Ginsberg had blazed to Mexico City. Soon he had separated from this U.S.-based literary movement taking up residence in an indigenous community in the Meseta Purepcha of the state of Michoacan

Six years later when John Ross returned to the United States, he was incarcerated by the FBI at Terminal Island federal penitentiary in San Pedro California for refusal to report for induction in the U.S. Army and became the first resister to be jailed for refusing service in Vietnam. In 2005, Ross returned to San Pedro to receive the American Civil Liberties Union's annual "Uppie" (for Upton Sinclair) award for his penultimate cult classic "Murdered by Capitalism – A Memoir of 150 Years of Life & Death on the U.S. Left.

Following the terrible September 1985 8.2 earthquake in Mexico City, Ross returned to the city he first knew as a young Beat and took up residence in the old quarter or "Centro Historico", the ancient Aztec island of Tenochtitlan, where he lives still. Now the dean of foreign correspondents in Mexico, Ross continues to report for Noticias Aliadas (Peru), the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the Texas Observer, and is a regular contributor to U.S. monthlies like the Progressive, the Nation, and Counterpunch (on line), in addition to the Mexican Left daily La Jornada. His investigations into electoral fraud and human rights abuses in Mexico, environmental carnage, and the struggles of Indians and farmers have won various awards down the years.

Since its earliest hour 12 years ago, Ross has accompanied the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, breaking the story of the impending uprising in a small northern California weekly weeks before it occurred, and writing three volumes chronicling this unique indigenous movement - "Rebellion  From the Roots" (American Book Award winner 1995), "The Annexation of Mexico" (1998), and "The War Against Oblivion" (200.) His fourth volume ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible – Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006" is to be published by Nation Books this October