Social Activist, Filmmaker and Author-Saul Landau-Visits RIT, Oct. 31

Gannett Lecture Series presents talk and film


What does filmmaker and social activist Saul Landau have to say about globalization?

Landau will give his talk, Race to the Border: Globalization Collides with Human Rights and the Environment, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 31, as part of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Caroline Werner Gannett Lecture Series. The presentation-free and open to the public-will take place in Webb Auditorium of the James E. Booth Building.

Landau, the Hugh O. La Bounty Chair for interdisciplinary and applied knowledge at California State Polytechnic University, has written 10 books and made 40 films. His work has won numerous awards, including an Emmy, a George Polk Award, a First Amendment Award and a Letelier-Moffit award for human rights.

As part of the Gannett series, Landau’s 1999 film, Maquila: A Tale of Two Mexicos, will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, in the Webb Auditorium. In this film, Landau compares and contrasts the patterns of corporate globalization on the U.S.-Mexican border-illustrated by the maquilas, foreign owned factories-with the traditional Mayan culture represented by recent migrants from the southern state of Chiapas.

"Saul Landau is one of his generation’s most influential social critics," says Robert Manning, Gannett Professor of the Humanities and Gannett lecture series director. "His wit and perceptive instincts have guided the American social conscience for over four generations. Whether as a journalist, scholar or filmmaker, Landau has had an unparalleled career in exposing social injustice both within the United States and abroad."

For more information about the Gannett series, call Cassandra Shellman at 475-2057 or visit www.rit.edu/gannettseries.