Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species October 7, 2009. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture. (NOTE: Friend 101) The search for the origins of species has entailed a series of great adventures over the past 200 years. Biologist and author Sean B. Carroll will chronicle the exploits of a group of […]
The Future of Conservatism October 12, 2009. Stafford Little Lecture Fund. (NOTE: 4:30 p.m.) This panel discussion among four conservative thinkers will address the role of conservatism in the current political arena—where it fits in the major parties, what role it may play in the next election, and what will happen to the right and […]
What Neurology Can Tell Us about Human Nature October 15, 2009. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture Studies of neurological patients can provide insight into the workings of the brain and suggest new treatments. The first section of the lecture will focus on phantom limbs as a key to understanding brain functions. We show that far from […]
The Danger of the Single Story October 20, 2009. (NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. NEW DATE IN FALL 2010 TO BE ANNOUNCED.) Spencer Trask Lecture
The Role of Europe in a Multilateral World November 19, 2009. Walter E. Edge Lecture. In his lecture, “The Role of Europe in a Multilateral World,” Romano Prodi will examine the benefits and challenges presented by the European Union’s expansion. Although the enlargement of the union has had significant impact on the democratic transition in […]
A Reading from Marias’s Works Followed by a Conversation with Professors Angel G. Loureiro and Michael Wood December 1, 2009. Cosponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Spencer Trask Fund. (NOTE: McCormick 101 at 4:30 p.m.)
Character in Music November 9, 2009. Cosponsored by the Spencer Trask Fund, Lewis Center for the Arts, Department of Music, Princeton University Concerts, and the Department of German (NOTE: 8:00 p.m. in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall. Free ticket required. See below for details.) The lecture sets out to show that in musical performances the perception […]
The Myth of the Echo Chamber: Politics in the Age of the Participatory Web September 21, 2009. Stafford Little Lecture Steven Berlin Johnson is the author of The Ghost Map (2006), a chronicle of the 1854 cholera epidemic in London, and The Invention of Air (2008), the story of British scientist Joseph Priestly and his […]
The Politics of Homosexuality February 18, 2010. Stafford Little Lecture. Cosponsored by the Princeton University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center. On the topic of homosexuality, Andrew Sullivan has stated “There are as many politics of homosexuality as there are words for it, and not all of them contain reason. And it is harder […]
Is an Eclipse Described in Homer’s Odyssey? November 30, 2009. Cosponsored by Department of Molecular Biology and the Louis Clark Vanuxem Fund. (NOTE: McCosh Hall 10) Plutarch and Heraclitus believed that a certain passage in the 20th book of The Odyssey (“Theoclymenus’s prophecy”) was a poetic description of a total solar eclipse. In the late […]
The Man Who Loved China February 11, 2010. Spencer Trask Lecture (NOTE: 8 p.m. in McCosh Hall 10) Seldom can it be said that any one person ever managed to change the outside world’s perception of an entire nation, an entire people. But, beginning in 1954, Joseph Needham (1900–1995), a Cambridge biochemist, a figure dauntingly eccentric […]
This Filthy World March 25, 2010. Cosponsored by the Lewis Center for the Arts/Performance Central and the Spencer Trask Lecture Fund. In this part-lecture, part-vaudeville performance, Waters speaks candidly and irreverently about the formative influences on his career, Hollywood, the art world, social taboos, and modern culture in general. Born in Baltimore, Waters began his […]
The Song Inside of What They Said to Me: On Performing America April 13, 2010. J. Edward Farnum Lecture (NOTE NEW DATE. 7:30 p.m. in McCosh 50) Best known for her one-person, documentary dramas in which she channels multiple characters, Smith recently conceived, wrote, and performed in Let Me Down Easy, a play about modern […]
The Current State of the Economy April 28, 2010. Stafford Little Lecture Fund (NOTE: 8 p.m. in McCosh Hall 10) Matthew Taibbi, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and Gillian Tett, the U.S. managing editor of Financial Times, will talk about the causes and possible outcomes of the current financial crisis. Taibbi, a 1991 graduate […]
The Search for Randomness March 4, 2010. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture (NOTE: McCosh Hall 10) Experiment and analysis show that some of the most primitive examples of random phenomena (tossing a coin, spinning a roulette wheel, and shuffling cards), under usual circumstances, are not so random. The lecture will examine the philosophical basis of randomness […]
Green Fluorescent Protein: Lighting Up Life (Note: McCosh Hall 10) January, 28, 2010. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture Martin Chalfie, chair and professor of biological sciences at Columbia University, shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP has […]
