WHO:  Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"

Samuel H. Preston, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

Bruce Kuklick, professor of history, University of Pennsylvania

WHAT: "Walter Isaacson in Conversation with Bruce Kuklick"

WHEN:  Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2003, 5 p.m.

WHERE:Zellerbach Theatre, 3680 Walnut St., Philadelphia

Walter Isaacson will discuss and read excerpts from his new book about University of Pennsylvania founder Benjamin Franklin.  The book is entitled "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life."  Bruce Kuklick, professor of history at Penn, will lead the public dialogue following the reading.

Isaacson's journalism career spans more than 25 years.  He has worked as a reporter for the Sunday Times of London, managing editor of Time magazine and chair and CEO of CNN.  He is currently president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit educational and public policy forum.

Isaacson's previous books are "Kissinger: A Biography" and "The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made," an examination of the men who formulated American foreign policy during the Cold War.

Bruce Kuklick is an authority on political, diplomatic and intellectual history in the United States. He has written eight books, among them "To Every Thing A Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, 1909-1976" and "A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000."

The book reading and discussion, co-sponsored by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Fox Forum and the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Consortium, is free and open to the public.