It is with great pleasure that the Reykjavik International Film Festival
presents a live video-conference with Noam Chomsky at the University of
Iceland Cinema (Háskólabíó) on September 28.
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics, and a major figure of analytic philosophy. Since the 1960s, he has become widely known as a political dissident, social critic and libertarian socialist.
According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Chomsky has been one of the most often cited sources. He is a prominent cultural figure. At the same time, his status as a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy has made him controversial.
In his video-conference in Reykjavik, on Hopes and Prospects, in light of the near collapse of the western economic system, Chomsky will address the questions: where we can find hope, and what are the alternatives we should be building? Also, what can Iceland learn from what happened?
Environmental issues will also be on the program, as Chomsky can discuss the struggle to advance alternative energies in a post-peak oil world and the impediments thrown in the way of eco visionaries. Chomsky should also address these questions in regards to Iceland.
The conference is essential for anyone who is concerned about the primary challenges facing the human race, e.g. environmental, economic and issues of democracy and power.
Before the conference, a panel on environmental, political and educational issues will be held in Icelandic. Chomsky's conference will start an hour later, at 6 PM.
Moderator of the conference will be Candian filmmaker Peter Wintonick, director of Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, which is also playing at RIFF.
A few days before the conference, people will be given the chance to put questions and topics for Chomsky on RIFF's homepage, www.riff.is.
The conference is in cooperation with The University of Iceland's School of Humanities.