Michael Moore, Juan Williams Events Set By Mark Twain House

Academy Award-winning Filmmaker Moore at Jorgensen Auditorium Nov. 18; Fox News' Williams at Twain Dec. 2.
The Mark Twain House and Museum welcomes two denizens of the current political scene, both of whom carry forward the Twainian tradition of feather-ruffling and boat-rocking: Filmmaker Michael Moore and Fox News' Juan Williams, at two separate events.

Michael Moore

Moore will appear in the museum's lecture series named from that famous quote -- A Pen Warmed Up in Hell -- &:30 pm Friday, Nov. 18 at Jorgensen Auditorium at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Williams will be speaking in the museum's Clemens Lecture series on Friday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 pm at The Mark Twain Museum Center in Hartford.

Tickets to the Moore talk are $25, $35, and $45, with $85 providing premium orchestra seating and a private reception with the filmmaker at 5:30 pm. To order, call 860-486-4226 or visit www.jorgensen.uconn.edu.

Tickets to the Williams lecture are $30 ($25 for Mark Twain House & Museum members) and can be purchased by calling 860-280-3130.

Moore, an Academy Award-winning documentarian and writer has stirred up the world of documentary filmmaking since the release of "Roger and Me" (1989), his direct-action film in which he confronted an auto mogul on the decline of his home city's signature industry.  Subsequent films -- including "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004), "Sicko" (June 29, 2007) and "Capitalism: A Love Story" have taken on the gun lobby, the Iraq War, the health industry and greed in general -- all in a way that has been described by supporters as fiendishly witty, or by opponents as irritatingly snarky.

Juan Williams.
Photo Frank Graves.

Williams provided the tinder for a firestorm of controversy last October, when National Public Radio fired him -- then one of their senior correspondents -- for statements he made on a Fox News program that seeing people in Arab dress on airplanes made him nervous. The ensuing debate led to a nationwide discussion on freedom of speech and journalistic responsibility, and after his firing by NPR Fox News expanded Williams' role as political analyst at the station.  Before his decade at NPR, Williams worked for the Washington Post for 23 years, and is the author of "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965," "Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary," "Enough," Williams' critique of black leaders in America and what he calls the "culture of failure"; and the current "Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate," an account of his termination by NPR.