As testimony to Mr Blair's continued celebrity pulling power, it is an impressive line-up.But the mood is likely to be darker than at previous gatherings intended to celebrate the politics of the "third way".
At the age of 31, Spener became superintendent of the Lutheran Church at Frankfurt am Main, where he began his collegia pietatis ("schools of piety"), devotional gatherings intended to encourage personal spiritual growth, prayer, and Bible study.
The gatherings, intended chiefly to get new mothers out of the house for a couple of hours, are held one afternoon a month, on Mondays in Manhattan and Tuesdays in Brooklyn.
A week before Thursday's rally – the second of 18 weekly gatherings intended to commemorate each year of Graham's life – Trayvon Martin's parents traveled to New York City, where they addressed a crowd that eventually swelled into thousands and filled Manhattan's streets.
In her 2001 video, "Official Welcome," taped at a private collector's house, Fraser delivered a monologue that mimicked, as one critic noted, "the banal comments and effusive words of praise uttered by presenters" during gatherings intended to introduce avant-garde artists to wealthy patrons.
Beginning yesterday and titled "The Second Nuclear Age and the Academy," this weekend's gathering is intended as call to action for scholars.
The gathering was intended partly as a show of solidarity with nine young people — including one suspected of writing "The Coming Insurrection" —whom in November the French police accused of forming a dangerous "ultraleftist" group and sabotaging train lines.
In a statement posted on their website, the council said it was concerned the gathering was intended to be a "party".
