The featured sessions aim to validate a public sociology that speaks across and beyond disciplines, that converses with all manner of publics, that affirms but also transcends local and national differences, that engages with the pressing issues of our time, and that, in so doing, vitalizes all sociology. Public sociology has many faces and many languages. So, with the help of the Ford Foundation, the world's most renown sociologists and public intellectuals will congregate in San Francisco to create a World Sociological Forum, a clashing of voices and perspectives on social science's public mission.

OPENING PLENARY
Friday, August 13th, 6:30-8:15 p.m.,
cosponsored with the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), and the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)

W.E.B. DuBois: Lessons for the 21st Century

Four distinguished scholars discuss the lessons to be extracted from W.E.B. Du Bois’s long career as academic and sociologist, editor and journalist, activist and publicist, Marxist and Pan-Africanist.

Presider: Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

Panelists:
Aldon Morris, Northwestern University
Patricia Hill Collins, University of Cincinnati
Gerald Horne, University of Houston
Manning Marable, Columbia University

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PLENARY
Saturday, August 14th, 12:30-2:15 p.m.
Speaking to Powers: A Global Conversation

A conversation among four sociologists from different countries (France, Norway, United States and Mexico) who have tried in various ways, to use their knowledge to affect the wider political process and who will discuss what they have learned from this endeavor.

Presider: Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University

Panelists:
Johan Galtung, Transcend, An International Peace and Development Organization
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, National Autonomous University, Mexico
Paul E. Starr, Princeton University
Alain Touraine, Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France

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PUBLIC ADDRESS
Saturday, August 14th, 7:30-9:30p.m.
Human Rights and Ethical Globalization


Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

ASA AWARDS CEREMONY & PRESIDENTIAL PLENARY
Sunday, August 15th, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
For Public Sociology

Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

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PLENARY
Monday, August 16th, 12:30-2:15 p.m.
Speaking to Publics: Limits and Possibilities

What publics can sociologists address? Are they disappearing? What are the ways of addressing them? Why should we bother to address them? Four commentators who straddle the boundaries of sociology from different directions discuss these questions and their own experiences with diverse publics.

Presider: Bernice Pescosolido, Indiana University



Panelists: Barbara Ehrenreich, Writer
William Julius Wilson, Harvard University
Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
Eric Wanner, Russell Sage Foundation

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PUBLIC ADDRESS
Monday, August 16th, 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Public Power in the Age of Empire


Arundhati Roy, Public intellectual-at-large, activist, and writer

CLOSING PLENARY
Tuesday, August 17th, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
The Future of Neoliberalism

Both Paul Krugman and Fernando Henrique Cardoso built their academic reputations for contributions to the theory of the international economy – the one an economist of trade and the other a sociologist of dependency. Both became public figures in the era of neoliberal ascendancy – the one a vitriolic columnist for The New York Times and the other Minister of Finance and then President of Brazil. In the light of their background in social science and their high profile political engagements, how do they view the future of politics and the market and, thus, of the world?

Presider: Juliet Schor, Boston College



Panelists:
Paul Krugman, Princeton University and The New York Times; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Former President of Brazil and Sao Paulo University

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CLOSING RECEPTION
Tuesday, August 17th. 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Closing Remarks: Sociologist as President


Fernando Henrique Cardoso