Vine Deloria, Jr.
(Standing Rock Sioux)

Time magazine has hailed Deloria as one of the eleven greatest religious thinkers of the 20th century. He is the senior statesman of Native American scholars; his first work, Custer Died for your Sins, one of the most influential books written on Indian affairs, helped launch the field of Native American Studies. His 19 following books explore a range of important social, historical, scientific, and legal issues. His most recent works – Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths and Red Earth, White Lies – challenge many accepted principles of traditional
scholarship. Deloria was one of the first Executive Directors of the National Congress of American Indians; his contributions to his nation and ours can hardly be exaggerated.

Jill Dubisch

Professor Dubisch, an expert on pilgrimage, joined Vietnam Veterans in the annual “Run to the Wall,” a cross country motorcycle journey from California to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. that is a uniquely contemporary pilgrimage. She discusses the experience in her book, jointly authored with Dr. Raymond Michalowski, Run for the Wall: Remembering Vietnam on a Motorcycle Pilgrimage. Her interest in
pilgrimage grew out of fieldwork in the islands of Greece, discussed in In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine. Dubisch is Regents Professor of Anthropology at Northern
Arizona University.

Sylvia Nasar

A Beautiful Mind, Nasar’s award-winning biography of Nobel Laureate John Nash, inspired the film that captivated audiences and won four Academy Awards, including “Best Picture.” Nasar lived in Germany, Washington, and Turkey before earning her B.A. in literature from Antioch and M.A. in economics from NYU. Nasar then turned to
journalism; she has been a writer for Fortune, a columnist for U.S. News and World Report, and a reporter for The New York Times. She was recently named the first John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her current project is a book on 20th century economic thinkers.

Sherwin Nuland

Surgeon, teacher, and medical historian, Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s bestseller How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter won the National Book Award, and has been translated into 17 languages. Death should not be viewed, he says, as a “medical failure,” to be experienced in lonely, clinical settings, but rather as a meaningful part of life – its final journey. “Death belongs to the dying and to those who love them. Though it may be sullied by the incursive havoc of disease, it must not be permitted to be further disrupted by well-meant exercises in futility." A Professor of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, Nuland’s most recent book is Lost in America: A Journey With My Father.

Deidre Scherer

"The textile art of Deidre Scherer is impossible to categorize, so distinctive is her technique and so powerful her reflections on life, death, and aging," says MS. Magazine. Scherer‘s fabric and thread images on aging have appeared in over one hundred individual and group shows throughout the United States and internationally, including many solo exhibitions. Fabric and thread have been her primary medium since the late 1970s, when she developed her distinct, narrative approach to fiber. Her work has been featured extensively in publications and on book
covers, including the best selling, When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. Last year she was featured in the “30 Distinguished Quilt Artists of the World 2003” exhibit in Tokyo, and in the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, D.C.

Martin Scorsese

Scorsese is the dean of American cinema; he defined the state of modern American filmmaking in the 70s and 80s. He is a consummate story teller and magnificent visual stylist. His films combine focused attention to the gritty details of everyday life with an extraordinary visual sensibility. Many of his characters are obsessed, often violent. Others of his films are darkly comic and sometimes lyrical. His long list of powerful movies include Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, GoodFellas, Kundun, and Gangs of New York.