Bell Hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader's "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life," she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world.

Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is the author of more than 17 books, including All About Love: New Visions; RememberedRapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.

Stuart Hall, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Britain's Open University, is widely regarded as the prime successor to Raymond Williams for his teachings on culture and society.

He has lectured extensively worldwide, and is Chairman of both inIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts) and Autograph.

For 15 years he has been at the vanguard of debates around race, identity and sexuality in the UK. He has written numerous key students' texts, and his books include Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left, Questions of Cultural Identity and Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subculture in Post-War Britain.