Each year the UTM Honors Program strives to provide an interesting and varied academic speaker program for the students, faculty and community to enjoy and learn from. The speaker list for this year's program has very much been influenced by last year's experiences with Middle Eastern culture and the September 11 terrorist attacks on America.

However, not all of the speakers will be dealing with this subject.

Dr. Charles Reagan Wilson will be the keynote speaker for the 2002 Festival of Southern Cultures. His talk is entitled "Creativity and the Southern Culture: Tradition, Innovation, and Diversity in the South". This speech will address the creativity of Southern writing, music, painting and folk art. It will also comment on how the racial and class conflicts of the 20th century have affected this area. Wilson is the author of such books as: Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis, and Baptized in the Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. A native of Nashville, Tenn., Wilson is currently the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and is a professor of history at the University of Mississippi. Wilson will be appearing at UTM on Sept. 30.

Khidir Hamza will be speaking at UTM on Oct. 21. His lecture is entitled, "Gas, Germs, and Other Bad Things: Iraq's Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction".

Hamza's information for this speech is drawn from his own personal experiences. He was a close advisor to Saddam Hussein, and was the designer of Iraq's atomic bomb. In 1994, Hamza defected to the United States after a terrifying escape through the mountains of Turkey, Libya, Tunisia and Hungary.

His family escaped from Iraq with the help of the CIA. Hamza is currently the President of the Council of Middle Eastern Affairs in New York City. He is also the author of the book Saddam's Bomb Maker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda.

This semester's concluding speaker will be Dr. Martin Marty, currently of the University of Chicago. Marty's speech will be given on Nov. 18 and is entitled, "Religious Pluralism as Threat and Promise". His talk will address the coexistence of religions and religious tolerance. Although a large portion of the speech will focus on Islam and Christianity, Marty will make references to other religions as well.

Marty is the author of over 50 books and has received over 67 honorary doctorates. He writes a regular column for Christian Century magazine and is the past president of the American Academy of Religion. Marty's other accomplishments are too numerous to list here.

All of these presentations will be made at 7:30 p.m. on the appointed dates in the Watkins Auditorium in the UC. After each presentation, there will be a question and answer period in which members of the audience are invited to participate. For more information about this semester's or next semester's speakers, please contact Dr. William Zachry of the UTM Honors Program.