Noam Chomsky To Speak At KGNU Benefit In Denver

Boulder-based KGNU will present “An Evening with Noam Chomsky” on May 7 at the Central Presbyterian Church in Denver.

The event, which will raise money to benefit the radio station on its 35th birthday, features Chomsky, the political theorist and activist who is also professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. Central Presbyterian Church is located at 1660 Sherman St. in Denver.

Tickets for the benefit are $20 for KGNU members and $25 for the general public. They are available online at kgnu.org. ___

via Noam Chomsky To Speak At KGNU Benefit In Denver.

Avram Noam Chomsky to speak at the 2013 Global Media Forum | Home | DW.DE | 01.03.2013

World-renowned linguist, philosopher and political critic Avram Noam Chomsky has confirmed his participation at this year’s Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.

An intellectual father of the Occupy movement, Chomsky will address the international media congress on its opening day, Monday, 17 June 2013. The widely respected academic and author will share his thoughts on the main theme of the three-day meeting in Bonn, “The Future of Growth – Economic Values and the Media”.

Chomsky’s publication, “Occupy”, is a collection of his speeches given to globalization critics that provides compelling context to the recent protest movements. In the word’s of the editor, “In his talks, Chomsky points out that one of the movement’s greatest successes has been simply to put the inequalities of everyday life on the national agenda, influencing reporting, public perception and language itself.”

via Avram Noam Chomsky to speak at the 2013 Global Media Forum | Home | DW.DE | 01.03.2013.

Chomsky to speak at Middle East Children’s Alliance, Oakland, May 8

AUB to award honorary doctorate to Chomsky, other luminaries | News , Local News | THE DAILY STAR

BEIRUT: Four trailblazers in their fields will be awarded honorary doctorates next month by the American University of Beirut.

This year’s degrees will go to world-renowned linguist and anti-war activist Noam Chomsky; Lebanese-American Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology; Egyptian actress and women’s activist Faten Hamama; and international business leader Ray R. Irani.

Chomsky, known as the “father of modern linguistics,” is credited with his groundbreaking research on generative grammar and human language development. A professor at the Massachusetts of Technology since 1955, his work in linguistics has served to advance the studies of liberal arts and psychology as well as mathematics and computer science. Chomsky has also been an outspoken critic of U.S. wars on Iraq and Vietnam, and has written extensively in support of the Palestinian cause.

via AUB to award honorary doctorate to Chomsky, other luminaries | News , Local News | THE DAILY STAR.

Noam Chomsky helped lobby Stephen Hawking to stage Israel boycott | World news | guardian.co.uk

Noam Chomsky was among 20 academics who privately lobbied Professor Stephen Hawking to boycott a major Israeli conference, it has emerged.

Chomsky, a US professor and well-known supporter of the Palestinian cause, joined British academics from the universities of Cambridge, London, Leeds, Southampton, Warwick, Newcastle, York and the Open University to tell Hawking they were “surprised and deeply disappointed” that he had accepted the invitation to speak at next month’s presidential conference in Jerusalem, which will chaired by Shimon Peres and attended by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

Hawking pulled out this week in protest at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, in the wake of receiving the letter and soundings from Palestinian colleagues. The 71-year-old theoretical physicist’s decision has been warmly welcomed by Palestinian academics, with one describing it as “of cosmic proportions”, but was attacked in Israel.

On Friday the liberal academic David Newman, dean of the faculty of humanities and social sciences at Ben Gurion University in Israel, warned that an academic boycott “just destroys one of the very few spaces left where Israelis and Palestinians actually do come together”.

Chomsky, who has backed “boycott and divestment of firms that are carrying out operations in the occupied territories”, agreed to add his considerable weight to the pressure on Hawking after email correspondence with the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine campaign group (Bricup), said its chair, Jonathan Rosenhead.

via Noam Chomsky helped lobby Stephen Hawking to stage Israel boycott | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Noam Chomsky | Scrap Trident

Fifteen years ago the World Court determined that it is a legal responsibility of the nuclear powers to meet their commitment to devote themselves to removing these awful devices from the earth Further development of these systems is not only a violation of law; it also increases threats to survival that are constant and serious. Those who are acting courageously to uphold our obligations deserve our sincere respect and full support.

via Noam Chomsky | Scrap Trident.

Now online: the historic Chomsky-Foucault debate | ROAR Magazine

Excerpts from the Foucault-Chomsky debate on human nature and power have circulated online for years — now it’s available in full for the first time.

In 1971, with the Vietnam war in full swing and radical social movements destabilizing the social, political and cultural order throughout the Western world, Dutch philosopher Fons Elders invited two of the world’s leading thinkers — the American linguist and activist Noam Chomsky and the French social theorist Michel Foucault — to debate a thorny and perennial question: is there such a thing as an “innate” human nature, and if so, what are its implications for our ideas about power, justice, revolution, and the shape of the ideal human society?

The resulting dialogue has been described as one of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers, and above all serves as a concise introduction to their basic theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault), soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviorism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for justice in the realm of politics.

In his book, The Passion of Michel Foucault, James Miller recounts that, while Chomsky and Foucault prepared for the debate in the preceding hours, “there were already signs that this was not going to be any ordinary debate”:

via Now online: the historic Chomsky-Foucault debate | ROAR Magazine.

Chomsky endorses Albany, NY ‘Stop Billion Military Aid to Israel’ billboard

The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel is proud to announce yet another billboard has just gone up calling for an end to military aid to Israel–this time in Albany, New York.

A new local group calling itself Stop 30 Billion NYS (New York State) has just distributed a press release, which is below.

Note that none other than Noam Chomsky has endorsed their billboard!

Albuquerque based Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel helped finance this billboard, plus helped with logistics, publicity strategizing, and community mobilization.

Congratulations to Mary Folsom and the rest of the organizers in Albany!

via Chomsky endorses Albany, NY ‘Stop Billion Military Aid to Israel’ billboard.

Exclusive interview with Noam Chomsky on Pakistan elections | DAWN.COM

Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Noam Chomsky, is without doubt the most widely heard and read public intellectual alive today. Although trained in linguistics, he has written on and extensively critiqued a wide range of topics, including US foreign policy, mainstream media discourses and anarchist philosophy. Chomsky’s work in linguistics revolutionised the field and he has been described as the ‘father of modern linguistics‘. Professor Chomsky, along with other luminaries such as Howard Zinn and Dr Eqbal Ahmad, came into prominence during the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s and has since spoken in support of national liberation movements (and against US imperialism) in countries such as Palestine, El Salvador and Nicaragua. In fact, his prolificacy in terms of academic and non-academic writing has earned him a spot among the ten most cited sources of all time (alongside Aristotle, Marx and Plato). Now in his mid-80s, Professor Chomsky shows no signs of slowing down and maintains an active lecturing and interview schedule. Here we caught up with him to get his views on upcoming Pakistani elections, American influence in the region and other issues.

As a country which has spent almost half of its existence under some sort of direct military rule how do you see this first ever impending transition from one democratically-elected government to another?

Noam Chomsky: Well, you know more about the internal situation of Pakistan than I do! I mean I think it’s good to see something like a democratic transition. Of course, there are plenty of qualifications to that but it is a big change from dictatorship. That’s a positive sign. And I think there is some potential for introducing badly needed changes. There are very serious problems to deal with internally and in the country’s international relations. So maybe, now some of them can be confronted.

via Exclusive interview with Noam Chomsky on Pakistan elections | DAWN.COM.

Noam Chomsky: Things Are Ugly—Do Something About It – YouTube

Noam Chomsky: Things Are Ugly—Do Something About It – YouTube.

Noam Chomsky: Things Are Ugly—Do Something About It
On The Earth Productions and VideoNation
May 7, 2013

Post-9/11 repression pales in comparison to what Americans have had in the past, and we have more ways to make a change than people used to have. So why aren’t we doing anything with them?

“I’ve never seen such fear and anger in the country before,” Noam Chomsky says in this video. “On the other hand, the opportunities are greater than before. There’s much more freedom.”

—Alec Luhn

Meanwhile, America’s energy hegemony abroad is eroding, and the Arab Spring continues that trend, Noam Chomsky writes.