Gitlin, Todd

Todd Gitlin is a professor of Journalism and Sociology at Columbia University. He held previous positions at New York University and the University of California, Berkeley; and has been visiting professor at Yale, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), Iowa, Oslo, Wesleyan.

He has published a number of books, including The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Inside Prime Time Rev; The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left; Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives; and Letters to a Young Activist. His Intellectuals and the Flag is forthcoming from Columbia University Press in November. He was the recipient of the Harold U Ribalow Prize in 2000, and also the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Non-fiction Award. Todd’s book The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by the Culture Wars is an examination of how the fundamental problems of inequality and racial discrimination are often overlooked by activists of identity politics who would rather fight against perceived symbols of insult.

Todd has written for publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe. He is on the editorial board of Dissent and a frequent contributer to Opendemocracy.net and TPMCafe.com.

He was the third president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1963-4, and in 1964-5 the co-ordinator of the SDS Peace Research and Education Project, during which time he helped organize the first national demonstration against the Vietnam War.