This event, conducted on Zoom, will feature a discussion between award-winning journalist and bestselling author Naomi Klein and Dean Robert Brinkmann on various topics, such as the current state of democracy, the role of technology in the spread of disinformation and feeding polarization, challenges presented by AI, factors at the heart of our dysfunction, and the breakdown of civil discourse. A moderated question and answer session will follow.
The program is free and open to the public, but advanced registration is required. Go to http://go.niu.edu/Rebuilding-Democracy-RSVP to request a link to the event before April 2. Event links will be sent from the clas-communication@niu.edu mailbox the day before the event.
Klein has dedicated her career to offering clarity and building solidarity on the most pressing social issues, and to date, her books have been published in over 35 languages worldwide. In her latest book, the NYT bestseller Doppelganger, she explores what she calls the “mirror world”: our current landscape of doubles and confusion born of misinformation, political polarization, and the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
She is a regular media commentator in print, radio and television worldwide, appearing on such shows as BBC Newsnight and HARDTalk, Democracy Now, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Colbert Report, and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Klein is a columnist with The Guardian and a contributor at Zeteo. She has also written regular columns for The Intercept (as Senior Contributing Writer), The Nation, and The Globe and Mail. Additionally, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, El Pais, L’Espresso, The New Statesman, and Le Monde, among many other publications.
Klein has authored a number of noteworthy, award-winning books. Doppelganger was a New York Times bestseller and A Notable Book of 2023, a TIME Magazine Top Ten Best Book of the Year and was shortlisted for several awards. On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal (2019) was a New York Times bestseller and was named a Best Climate Book by Fast Company magazine. No Is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need (2017) was a New York Times bestseller and was nominated for the National Book Award. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014) won the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was nominated for multiple other awards; it was also a New York Times bestseller and was named to the New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of the Year.
She is a Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Arts and is the founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice. She is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, as well as an honorary professor of media and climate.
