Film of Chris Hedges lecture to be shown Feb. 8

HOUGHTON -- Allan Baker will present Calling All Rebels, a filming of a lecture originally given at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Berkeley, Calif., by Chris Hedges -- American journalist, author, and war correspondent. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8, in the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (KUUF) office, located in the back of Trinity Episcopal Church, 205 E. Montezuma Ave., Houghton.

This presentation is free and open to the public.

Christopher Lynn Hedges was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He grew up in rural New York, graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., in 1975 and received a B.A. in English Literature from Colgate University. He later gained a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where he studied under James Luther Adams. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in May 2009 from the Unitarian Universalist seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, California.

Hedges specializes in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. His most recent book is The World As It Is (2011). He is also known as the best-selling author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Hedges is a critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. As an early and vocal critic of the Iraq War, he questioned the rationale for war by the Bush administration and was critical of the early press coverage, calling it "shameful cheerleading."

Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).

In 2002, Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He also received in 2002 the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and The University of Toronto. Hedges writes a weekly column on Mondays for Truthdig and authored what The New York Times described as "a call to arms" for the first issue of The Occupied Wall Street Journal, the newspaper giving voice to the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park, New York City.