An Evening with Elie Wiesel September 21, 2005. Walter E. Edge Lecture Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, novelist, and professor of the humanities at Boston University, Elie Wiesel has been a tireless human rights advocate for much of his life. His personal experience of the Holocaust informs his work as a teacher, writer, and […]
The Future of the Web April 5, 2006. Spencer Trask Lecture Fifteen years after the launch of the World Wide Web and five years after the start of the Semantic Web, the web of documents is well deployed and work on the web of data is taking off steadily. This talk will discuss the challenges […]
Visual Space/Ritual Space and the Agency of the Greek Priestess February 8, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture The visual culture of ancient Greece has left a record rich with information on the active role of women in the organization and functioning of cult. Connelly draws upon images from vase painting, portrait sculpture, votive […]
Extra-Literary Influences: The Things That Help, The Things That Hurt April 18, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture A talk about the unusual and unlikely forces that act on writers, including the speaker, and turn them to their vocation. Richard Ford, author of the recently published The Lay of the Land, won the Pulitzer Prize […]
A Conversation with Paul Taylor, with Maura Keefe, dance historian April 29, 2005. J. Edward Farnum Lectures
Shelley’s Heart and Pepys’s Lobsters September 27,2004 Jane Austen Faints September 28, 2004 Virginia Woolf’s Nose September 29, 2004 J. Edward Farnum Lectures and Princeton University Press As readers, we are increasingly fascinated by life stories and ways of telling them. In these three lectures, Professor Hermione Lee is thinking about different approaches to “life […]
The Design of Everything: From Success to Failure December 7, 2004. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lectures December 7, 2004 1. From Plato’s Cave to PowerPoint: An Illustrated Lecture on the Illustrated Lecture The first things were found in nature. All made things come from pre-existing (natural and made) things. The naming of things confirms this. The […]
Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values September 25, 2003 – 8:00 pm. Walter E. Edge Lectures Powerful forces threaten the traditional purposes of college sports and create a growing divide between intercollegiate athletics and the educational missions of universities. A new study of nearly 28,000 students at Ivy League universities and liberal arts […]
Building Places from Memories. February 24, 2004. Stafford Little Lectures About the Stafford Little Fund Initially known as the Stafford Little Lectureship on Public Affairs, the fund was “[f]ounded in 1899 with a gift of $10,000 by Henry Stafford Little of the Class of 1844, who suggested that Grover Cleveland, ex-President of the United States, […]
Lyric Intimacy: Speaking to Invisible Listeners. April 14, 15, 16, 2004. J. Edward Farnum Lectures April 14 (8:00pm), 15 (8:00pm), 16 (4:30pm), 2004: McCosh 50 I. George Herbert and God: Intimacy with the Better Self II. Walt Whitman and the Reader in Futurity: Intimacy with the Longed-for Camerado III. John Ashbery and the Artist of […]
The Human Prejudice October 15, 2002. Walter E. Edge Lectures Many people think that “humanity” is an ethical idea, and that it makes a basic moral difference whether a creature they are dealing with is another human being or not. This is implicit in such as ideas as “human rights”, and in one sense of […]
Do Movies have a Future? March 13, 2003. J. Edward Farnum Lectures David Denby will discuss the nature of the American movie business and the role of the critic: Eight production companies are owned by six conglomerates, production is tilted toward 15-25 year-old males, the quality movies are loaded into the last six weeks of […]
Work in Progress #131 April 26, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Stafford Little Lecture NOTE: Friend Center 101 Thom Mayne, the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, is the founder and design principal of Morphosis, an interdisciplinary and collective architectural practice in Los Angeles involved in innovative design and rigorous research. The firm’s work ranges from residential, […]
How To Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times September 20, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture Floss daily, save for retirement, and don’t wear plaid pants before or after Labor Day. Most experts tell us what to decide but they don’t tell us how, and so the moment we face […]
Sin: The Early History of an Idea (Note: McCosh Hall 10) October 9, 10, 11, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally […]
A Panoramic View of the History of Mexico (NOTE: McCosh Hall 10) October 18, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture A personal view of Mexican history, its different stages from the Indian civilizations to the present day. Novelist, scholar, and diplomat, Carlos Fuentes was born in Panama and educated in both Mexico and Washington, […]
The Bible and American Fiction April 8, 9, 10, 2008 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press The Bible, though its centrality may now be fading, has been a pervasive presence in American culture, for the most part, in the King James version. It was the Old Testament rather than the […]
Onetti and the Shadows of Faulkner and Borges April 22, 2008 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture A discussion of the novels of Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti and their relationship to the work of William Faulkner and Jorge Luis Borges.
The Bible and American Literature April 8, 9, 10, 2008 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press The Bible, though its centrality may now be fading, has been a pervasive presence in American culture, for the most part, in the King James version. It was the Old Testament rather than the […]
Topic to be announced April 8, 9, 10, 2008 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press The Bible, though its centrality may now be fading, has been a pervasive presence in American culture – for the most part, in the King James version. It was the Old Testament rather than the […]
A Brusque History of Eternity November 6, 7 8, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press Until fairly recently eternity was no mere abstraction or metaphor in the Christian tradition, but rather the ultimate destination for humankind, a metaphysical conceit with practical implications as inescapable as legal obligations, or taxes, […]
A Brusque History of Eternity November 6, 7 8, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press Until fairly recently eternity was no mere abstraction or metaphor in the Christian tradition, but rather the ultimate destination for humankind, a metaphysical conceit with practical implications as inescapable as legal obligations, or taxes, […]
Poetry Reading (NOTE: 4:30 p.m. in McCormick 101) February 21, 2008 – Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by the Department of English and the Princeton Environmental Institute Robert Hass, poet laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997, will read from his latest collection, Time and Materials. Currently chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, […]
Sin: The Early History of an Idea (NOTE: McCosh Hall 10) October 9, 10, 11, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally […]
Sin: The Early History of an Idea (NOTE: McCosh Hall 10) October 9, 10, 11, 2007 – 8:00 p.m. Spencer Trask Lecture, cosponsored by Princeton University Press Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally […]
Reading from Speaking of Faith Followed by Panel Discussion (NOTE: 7:00 p.m.) February 5, 2008 – Spencer Trask Lecture cosponsored by the Department of Anthropology The founder and host of American Public Media’s “Speaking of Faith” will read from her book. Leigh Schmidt (Department of Religion), Matt Hedstrom (Center for the Study of Religion), and […]
Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History April 28, 2009. J. Edward Farnum Lecture (Note: 8:00 p.m. in McCosh Hall 10) What basic musical figures tie together the music of different centuries, different worlds, different genres? Do certain groups of notes possess intrinsic meaning, or is meaning invariably imparted by particular cultural communities? […]
Made in America: The History of Black Gospel Music Thursday, September 25 (Note: 4:30 p.m. in McCormick Hall 101) “Our Music Was Tambourines and Sometimes Guitar: Contemplating the Roots of Black Gospel.” The first of four lectures during fall 2008 on the history of gospel music.
Are You Who We Think You Are? February 19, 2009, J. Edward Farnum Lecture (NOTE: 5:30 p.m. in McCosh 50.) FREE TICKET REQUIRED. Tickets are no longer available. There will be a wait line the night of the event, and individuals without tickets may be seated if seats become available. The lecture will be simulcast […]
Does College Really Matter? The History of Undergraduate Education, Why It’s in Trouble, and What to Do About It Three-lecture series. December 1, 2, 3, 2008. Stafford Little Lectures. (NOTE: All lectures at 5:30 p.m. in McCosh Hall 10) College is a uniquely American institution that has long been a pervasive fact of our national […]
Does College Really Matter? The History of Undergraduate Education, Why It’s in Trouble, and What to Do About It Three-lecture series. December 1, 2, 3, 2008. Stafford Little Lectures. (NOTE: All lectures at 5:30 p.m. in McCosh Hall 10) College is a uniquely American institution that has long been a pervasive fact of our national […]
Odetta, Folk Music, and Social Activism (NOTE: panel discussion 4:30–6:30 p.m. in McCosh 10; concert at 8:30 p.m. in Richardson Auditorium) April 9, 2009. Cosponsored by the Center for African American Studies, the Program in American Studies, the Program in Women and Gender, the Departments of History, Music, and Religion, the Humanities Council, the Centers […]
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
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 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 Writer as Two Selves: Reflections on the Private Act of Writing and the Public Act of Citizenship October 20, 2010. Spencer Trask Lecture Born in Nigeria, novelist Chimamanda Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus (2003), which was nominated for a Booker Prize, and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), which won the 2007 Orange […]
The Ashtray November 15, 2010. Spencer Trask Lecture Errol Morris is a director and filmmaker. His film “The Fog of War” about Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara won the 2003 Academy Award for best documentary feature. Other films have won the Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America, the Golden Horse (Taiwan International Film […]
SIGNALS GraphicChipDesignKidd November 30, 2010. Spencer Trask Lecture Citing examples from his near quarter-century’s worth of work, Chip Kidd explains the way graphic design works, how our brains process it, what it means if it succeeds or fails, and why we should care. Chip Kidd is an award-winning art director and graphic designer. Currently he […]
Picturing Robert: Remembering a friendship and artistic relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe December 7, 2010. Spencer Trask Lecture Patti Smith is a singer, songwriter, poet, and visual artist. Her memoir, Just Kids (Ecco, Harper Collins 2010) about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, just won the 2010 National Book Award for nonfiction. Smith will read excerpts from the […]
Writing Life November 10, 2011 Cosponsored by the J. Edward Farnum Lecture Fund, the Center for Jewish Life, and the Departments of English and Comparative Literature Jonathan Safran Foer, a 1999 graduate of Princeton, is the author of the novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). In 2009, he published […]
Future Imperfect: The Clock Strikes Midnight October 16, 2012 J. Edward Farnum Lecture, cosponsored by the Committee on Canadian Studies An investigation into horrid and near-horrid literary futures, beginning with Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, and continuing with a romp through various unsanitary corners of times to come, including the Zombie Apocalypse. […]
The Mathematics of Change: A Comic Monologue about Failure at Princeton April 5, 2012 J. Edward Farnum Lecture (cosponsored by the Department of Mathematics) Josh Kornbluth (’80) is a comic monologuist who has performed in theaters around the country, as well as in Poland and India. He codirected and starred in the feature film Haiku Tunnel, […]
Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 8:00 pm NOTE: McCosh 10 Cosponsored by the Spencer Trask Lectures Series and the Program of Belknap Visitors in the Humanities The Thinking Eye Edward Tufte, data theorist and pioneer in the field of data visualization, will discuss seeing, reasoning, and producing in high science and high art. His […]
Politics and Culture in Latin America, a Conversation with Enrique Krauze Tuesday, October 8, 2013 6:00 PM in McCosh 50 Writer and Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa will discuss the current state of politics and culture in Latin America in a conversation with Enrique Krauze, Historian and Visiting Research Scholar. Mario Vargas Llosa’s novels, including […]
Film and Terrorism Tuesday, March 4, 2014 6:00 pm, McCosh 50 Filmmaker Olivier Assayas and Critic Ian Buruma will present a conversation on “Film and Terrorism.” Ruben Gallo, Director of Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies, will lead the discussion, which will focus on how Assayas has portrayed terrorism in several of his award-winning […]
Culture and Politics in 21st Century France: The French Cultural Exception” Monday, April 7, 2014 6:00 pm, McCosh 50 Frédéric Mitterrand will discuss Culture and Politics in 21st Century France. Ruben Gallo, Director of Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies, will lead the discussion, which will focus on Mitterrand’s tenure as Minister of Culture under […]
Writing on the Writing Process: A Reading Wednesday, November 12, 2014 6:00 pm, McCosh 50 John McPhee, author and pioneer of creative non-fiction, will read from several personal history pieces, all relating to the writing process and to Princeton. John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge […]
Tuesday, October 6, 2015 6:00 pm; McCosh 50 From Privation to the President: Marc Maron and the rise of WTF Comedian Marc Maron is the host of the popular and influential twice-weekly podcast WTF with Marc Maron, in which he conducts thoughtful, idiosyncratic interviews with fellow comedians, musicians, and actors. Slate described Maron’s two hour conversation […]
Whose Story? Re-centering the Mainstream Wednesday, March 23, 2016 McCosh 50, 6:00 pm Tony Award winning playwright, librettist and TV writer David Henry Hwang (M. BUTTERFLY, CHINGLISH, AIDA, THE AFFAIR) shares his journey as a kid from Los Angeles who discovered theatre, and what it means to be an Asian American writer in a country where […]
Monday, April 11, 2016 McCosh 50; 6:45 pm Join Professor Manjul Bhargava *01 (Associate Producer), Devika Bhise (Actress), Matt Brown (Writer & Director), Ed Pressman (Producer), Betsy Rodgers ’95 (IFC Films), and Tristine Skyler ’93 (Executive Producer) for a discussion on the life and work of Ramanujan and the making of the […]
Public Events, Private Lives – Literature and Politics in the Modern World Wednesday, May 10, 2017 McCosh Hall Room 50; 6:00 pm Acclaimed author Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie is the author of twelve novels, as well as memoirs, short stories, and essays. A Fellow of the British Royal Society of Literature, Salman Rushdie has received, […]
