About Our Speakers: Stephen Eric Bronner and Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM
Stephen Eric Bronner
Stephen Eric Bronner is currently a Professor of Political Science and member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He has written extensively and his many scholarly works include Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation (Univ. of Kentucky Press, 2007) and Blood in the Sand: Imperial Fantasies, Right-Wing Ambitions, and the Invasion of Iraq ( Univ. of Kentucky, 2005). He has lectured worldwide including conferences in Berlin, Brussels, Khartoum and London, along with numerous radio and television interviews. He is the Senior Editor of “Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture.” For extensive information about Professor Bronner please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StephenBronner
Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM
Fr. Louis Vitale served in the U.S. Air Force as a pilot in the Korean War. He has a doctorate in sociology from the Univ. of California. In 1963 he was ordained as a Franciscan priest. For over five decades, Fr. Vitale has worked tirelessly as an activist for the homeless, for human rights and for peace and non-violence. He has worked in the United Farmworkers Movement, on welfare rights campaigns and with human rights delegations in Central America. Fr. Vitale co-founded two organizations: the Nevada Desert Experience, an anti-nuclear group, and Pace e Bene, a group dedicated to non-violent living, service and action. In 2001 he served 6 months in prison for civil disobedience at the infamous U.S. Army School of the Americas. In Nov. 2006, Fr. Louis and Fr. Stephen Kelly were arrested while protesting torture training at Ft. Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He continues to campaign against torture and his trial is currently pending.