ATTENTION: Political, Labor and Globalization Writers

03 September 2002
Contact: Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
(510) 643-5651
ckm@pa.urel.berkeley.edu

WHAT:
The U.S. premiere of "Sociology is a Martial Art," an award-winning documentary film tracing the life and work of the late Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, author and ardent public intellectual. Considered one of France's most influential thinkers and prominent social activists, Bourdieu died unexpectedly in Paris in January at age 71.

Being shown at the University of California, Berkeley, the film by controversial French documentary maker Pierre Carles will be introduced by Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl. The film is in French, with English subtitles. It is free and open to the public.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Carles; UC Berkeley Film Studies Chair Linda Williams; and Loïc Wacquant, a UC Berkeley sociology professor and Bourdieu's longtime collaborator.

WHEN:
8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 12.

WHERE:
Wheeler Auditorium in Wheeler Hall, just northeast of Sather Gate and Sproul Plaza, on the central campus of UC Berkeley.

BACKGROUND:
Bourdieu was not only the most cited social scientist in the world, but was active in the anti-globalization movement, encouraged striking French railway workers in their 1995 protest of government social security reform, and defended ethnic immigrants from the attacks by government and right-wing groups.

The film will open "Ethnografeast", a Sept. 12-14 international conference at International House of sociologists and anthropologist. It is being organized by the journal Ethnography and UC Berkeley's Center for Urban Ethnography. The conference will focus on the practice, predicament and promise of ethnography for the coming century. It will feature papers by and debates among 20 of the world's foremost practitioners of field research, among them Ruth Behar, Jean Comaroff, Paul Farmer, Ulf Hannerz and Paul Willis.