Prolific writers and activists Marta Harnecker and Michael Lebowitz, experts on politics and society in Latin America, will speak about the prospects for radical social change in the region.
BIO: Marta Harnecker is a prominent Chilean psychologist and social investigator who has written about social transformation in Latin America for more than 40 years. After the bloody coup against the Allende government in 1973, Marta moved to Cuba and became Director of the research centre Memoria Popular Lationoamericana. Between 2004 and 2011, Marta was based at the Centro International Miranda research institute in Venezuela, and served as an advisor to President Chávez and various Venezuelan institutions. Marta is the author of over 80 books and monographs. Her book A World to Build won the “Literatador Prize for Critical Thinking” in 2013. Her latest book Planning from Below: A proposal of decentralized participatory planning, was published in Spanish in 2015, and is being translated into English.
BIO: Michael Lebowitz is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Michael spent six years (2004-2010) in Venezuela working as a director of the program for Transformative Practice and Human Development at the Centro International Miranda. Michael is one of the world’s leading Marxist authors today. His many books include: The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now (2015) and Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class (2003).