MEDIA ADVISORY: The Great Globalization Debate

ATTENTION: News and feature editors

18 October 2001
Contact: Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
(510) 643-5651
[email protected]

WHAT:
"The Great Globalization Debate," the Zellerbach Distinguished Lecture by Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Lecture topics will include:

* Globalization and the shape the world will assume in the 21st century
* What are the connections between globalization and Sept. 11th?
* What exactly is globalization?
* Why do so many people feel so strongly about it?

WHEN:
6 - 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 25.

WHERE:
University of California, Berkeley's Sibley Auditorium in the Bechtel Engineering Center.

WHO:
Anthony Giddens is the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a widely read and followed social theorist.

BACKGROUND:
A guest of UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare, Giddens is the author of 35 books published in more than 30 languages. In recent years, he has turned from sociological theory to its policy applications.

His book "Runaway World: How Globalization Is Shaping Our Lives," (Routledge, 2000) explores the risks of globalization and its effects on family, tradition and democracy.

"In a globalizing world, where information and images are routinely transmitted across the globe, we are all regularly in contact with others who think differently and live differently," he writes. "Cosmopolitans welcome and embrace this cultural complexity. Fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous. Whether in the areas of religion, ethnic identity, or nationalism they take refuge in a renewed and purified tradition - and, quite often, violence."