Alex Kotlowitz
Award-Winning Journalist and Bestselling Author
Bearing Witness: Storytelling and Human Rights
In this lecture Alex Kotlowitz will address how storytelling helps us understand our society, and why acknowledging the lives of marginalized populations—those whose voices have been drowned out—is essential to our ongoing struggle for the maintenance of human rights.
Award-winning journalist Alex Kotlowitz, lauded for his unflinching portrayal of race and poverty in America, is the author of the bestselling works of nonfiction There Are No Children Here and The Other Side of the River. He recently produced the critically-acclaimed documentary The Interrupters, with director Steve James (Hoop Dreams), which was inspired by an article Kotlowitz wrote about urban violence in Chicago for The New York Times Magazine in 2008. Hailed by A.O. Scott of The New York Times as one of the “must see” documentaries of 2011, The Interrupters was praised by The Miami Herald as “a heartbreaking, empowering documentary about inner-city violence.” The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival early in 2011 and aired as a 2-hour special on PBS’s Frontline in March 2012. It was awarded the 2012 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. A staff writer for The Wall Street Journal from 1984–1993, Kotlowitz remains an active journalist and is a regular contributor to National Public Radio (This American Life, All Things Considered, and Morning Edition) and The New York Times Magazine.