The Human Condition Series

Henry A. Giroux  is the Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies. His most recent books include:  Beyond the Spectacle of Terrorism (2006), The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex (2007), and Beyond the Terror of Neoliberalism: Beyond the Politics of Greed (2008).

Henry A. Giroux received his doctorate from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1977. He taught at Boston University from 1977 to 1983. From 1983-1992, he taught at Miami University. 

In 1992, Giroux accepted the Waterbury Chair Professorship at Pennsylvania State University and served as the Director of the Waterbury Forum in Education and Cultural Studies. In 2004, he accepted a position at McMaster University in Canada where he is the Global Television Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies. He is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals. He also serves as the editor or co-editor of three scholarly book series. Professor Giroux was selected as a Kappa Delta Pi Laureate in 1998 and was the recipient of a Getty Research Institute Visiting Scholar Award in 1999. He was the recipient of the Hooker Distinguished Professor Award for 20001.  

Dr. Giroux was named as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern periodin Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education: From Piaget to the Present as part of  Routledge’s Key Guides Publication Series (2002). In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from Memorial University in Canada.  He is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals, and he serves as the editor or co-editor of three scholarly book series. His research focuses on a variety of issues including cultural studies, youth, critical pedagogy, democratic theory, public education, communication theory, social theory, and the politics of higher education.

Professor Giroux has published more than 40 books as well as over 270 articles in a wideranging number of scholarly journals. His most recent books include: Take Back Higher Education(co-authored with Susan Giroux–2006); America on the Edge(2006);  The Giroux Reader (2006);  Beyond the Spectacle of Terrorism (2006), Stormy Weather: Katrina and the Politics of Disposability (2006), The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex (2007)., and Beyond the Terror of Neoliberalism: Beyond the Politics of Greed (200

Sut Jhally  is Founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation (MEF). He is best known as the producer and director of a number of films and videos (including Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video; Tough Guise: Media, Violence and the Crisis of Masculinity; and Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire.

Dr. Jhally is Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation (MEF). He is one of the world’s leading scholars looking at the role played by advertising and popular culture in the processes of social control and identity construction.

The author of numerous books and articles on media (including The Codes of Advertising and Enlightened Racism), Dr. Jhally is also an award-winning teacher (a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Massachusetts, where the student newspaper has also voted him “Best professor”). In addition, he has been awarded the Distinguished Outreach Award, and was selected to deliver a Distinguished Faculty Lecture in 2007. He is best known as the producer and director of a number of films and videos (including Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video; Tough Guise: Media, Violence and the Crisis of Masculinity; and Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire) that deal with issues ranging from gender, sexuality and race to commercialism, violence and politics.

Born in Kenya, raised in England, educated in graduate studies in Canada, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.  In 1984, Dr. Jhally completed his Ph.D. in Communications at Simon Fraser University, in Canada. He has his completed two Master’s degrees, the first at the University of York, in England, 1977 in History and Sociology and the second at  the University of Victoria, Canada, in the Department of Sociology in 1980. 

Sunera Thobani was the Lansdowne Scholar in Residence at the School of Social Work, University of Victoria (1997) before being appointed at UBC. Her current research projects include a SSHRC funded project, “Television Representations of  Women and the War on Terrorism”, and a Hampton Research Grant project, “Gender, Globalization and International Conflict: Representation of Women in the Print Media”.

Dr. Thobani’s  degrees are from Middlesex University (BA in Social Sciences), University of Colorado (MA in Social Sciences and Certificate in Women’s Studies) and Simon Fraser University (PhD in Sociology). Prior to coming to UBC she was the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Professor in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University (1996-2000). Dr. Thobani was the Lansdowne Scholar in Residence at the School of Social Work, University of Victoria (1997).

Since her appointment at UBC. Dr. Thobani has been committed to using an interdisciplinary approach in her teaching and research, and to maintaining her involvement in community and social justice activities. She teaches WMST 100 “An Introduction to Women’s Studies” and WMST 480 “Women as Agents of Change - A Practicum in Women’s Studies”. WMST 480 makes important connections between feminist theory and activist work as student participate in a community organization to provide experiential learning normally not available in the traditional classroom setting.Dr. Thobani’s academic publications include articles in journals such as Canadian Woman Studies, Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal, Journal of Canadian Women and the Law, Refuge and Race & Class. Her research focuses on globalization, citizenship, migration and race and gender relations. Her current research projects include a Hampton Research Grant project, Gender, Globalization and International Conflict: Representation of Women in the Print Media’ and a SSHRC funded project, Television Representations of Women and the War on Terrorism. 

Dr. Thobani is also past president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), Canada’s largest feminist organization. The first woman of colour to serve in this position, Ms. Thobani’s tenure was committed to making the politics of anti-racism central to the women’s movement. In her community work she has written and spoken on many issues, including the impact of globalization on women’s citizenship; Canadian immigration and social policy; new reproductive technologies; violence against women; and women and APEC. She has been invited to help organize and give addresses at numerous international conferences, including the NGO Forum at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China (1996), the First International Women’s Conference on APEC in Manila, Philippines (1996), and the National Association of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Councillors in Manchester, Britain(1998).