New Yorker Festival to Host Politically Charged Lineup

by Staff
8.25.08

The New Yorker recently announced a portion of the program for its 2008 New Yorker Festival, to be held at various venues throughout New York City from October 3 through October 5. At the heart of the ninth annual festival will be a town hall meeting on race and class in America moderated by the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, and featuring scholar Cornel West, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, and linguist John H. McWhorter, among others.

Additional events throughout the three-day festival, which this year has a special emphasis on politics, include a conversation with director Oliver Stone on his controversial new film W., based on the life of the forty-second president; a panel on political humor; and interviews with Alice Munro, Seamus Heaney, and Stephen Colbert. The festival will also work with the New York City Board of Elections on a voter registration campaign at all festival venues featuring special guests who will register citizens to vote.

The festival guide, with a complete schedule and list of events, will be available on the festival Web site on September 8. Tickets go on sale on September 12.