Nassau Notes

McCarter Theatre

McCarter Theatre will present the legendary Moiseyev Dance Company at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10. Founded in 1936 by acclaimed choreo-grapher Igor Moiseyev, the ensemble of more than 100 dancers transforms Russian folklore and its treasury of songs, dances, customs and tradition into a theatrical spectacle. For ticket information, contact the McCarter box office at 258-2787 or <www.mccarter.org>.

Panel focuses on Bush’s second term

The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs will present “Bush’s Second Term: A Panel Discussion on What to Expect” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.

Discussants will include: Mickey Edwards, lecturer of public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School; Fred Greenstein, professor of politics emeritus and director of the Program in Leadership Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School; David Lewis, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton; and Mike McCurry, a 1976 Princeton alumnus who is principal of the Washington-based Public Strategies Group, and who served as senior adviser to the John Kerry for President campaign and White House press secretary to Bill Clinton.

The panel will be moderated by Larry Bartels, the Donald Stokes Professor of Public and International Affairs and director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton.

Controversial court decision is topic

Constitutional scholar Nelson Lund will discuss the issues surrounding the right to sexual privacy in a lecture titled “Lawrence v. Texas: The Worst Supreme Court Opinion in History?” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, in 104 Computer Science Building.

The decision reversed a two-decades-old ruling that said states could punish homosexuals for what laws had historically called “deviant sex.”

Lund, the Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and Second Amendment at the George Mason University School of Law, has written widely in the field of constitutional law — including constitutional interpretation, federalism and the separation of powers.

The lecture, part of the American’s Founding and Future series, is sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Conference showcases early magic

Internationally renowned scholars will gather at Princeton Thursday and Friday, Feb. 10-11, for a conference on “Renaissance Magic: Performance, Technology, Theater.”

The event, sponsored by the Humanities Council and the Renaissance Studies Committee, and with support from the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project, starts with a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, and continues from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, in 106 McCormick.

Topics of discussion will include alchemy and flying machines and the transition from magic to modern science. Another major theme will be the presence of magic on the Renaissance stage, prevalent in works such as Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus,” William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and Ben Jonson’s “The Alchemist.”

The conference will feature a live experiment in alchemy, conducted by Lawrence Principe, professor of the history of science and technology and of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. In 2004, Principe won the inaugural Francis Bacon Award for his work on early modern alchemy and chemistry.

Nigel Smith, professor of English and chair of the Renaissance Studies Committee, said that the conference will underscore the connection between magic and modern science.

“We tend to think of magic as a set of foolish assumptions from which modern science finally escaped in the 17th century,” said Smith. “But the two ways of explaining the universe were far more continuous than has been acknowledged. An understanding of magic and its function in the past is a valuable way of reflecting on the role of science and technology in our world,” he said.

In connection with the conference, an exhibit, “Renaissance Magic in Books,” will be shown in the Main Exhibition Gallery of Firestone Library. It will include eight illustrated manuscripts and printed books dating from the 16th and 17th centuries that depict Renaissance magicians. The items are from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

For more information about the conference, visit the Renaissance Studies Committee Web site at <www.princeton.edu/~renaiss> or contact Peggy Reilly at <mjreilly@princeton.edu>.

Law scholar to analyze the role of the Constitution in emergencies

Should we expect the government to follow the same constitutional principles during periods of crisis as periods of calm? Kathleen Sullivan, the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law and former dean at the Stanford University School of Law, will look at this and other questions during a lecture at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 9, in McCosh 50.

Titled “The Constitution and Emergency,” the address is part of the University’s Public Lectures Series.

Sullivan, widely considered one of the top constitutional law scholars in the nation, will consider issues such as the flexibility of the U.S. Constitution and how it compares to those of other nations. She will discuss whether the government’s response to the events of Sept. 11 have kept faith with or altered the Constitution. She is expected to pay special attention to the constitutional traditions of due process, equal protection, and privacy from government surveillance in the absence of individualized suspicion.

Sullivan’s talk is designated as the Walter Edge Lecture and will be available for online viewing a week afterward at <www.princeton.edu/webmedia>.

University Chapel exhibition

“Eutychus Falls Into Life” is one of the religious paintings by New York artist Simon Carr on display in the University Chapel through Feb. 20. Carr has shown his work in sacred and secular venues in New York, including St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Union Theological Seminary, the Interchurch Center, Metro Baptist Church, the Bill Bace Gallery and the Bowery Gallery. For the last 10 years, much of his work has involved large-scale narrative paintings drawn from the New Testament. An opening reception for the exhibition, presented by the Office of Religious Life, is scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, with a gallery talk by Carr beginning at 4:30 p.m. in the Chapel Crypt.

Author to read from her work

Susan Choi, author of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist “American Woman,” will read from her work at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 9, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

Choi is serving this spring as a lecturer in the Humanities Council and the Creative Writing Program.

“American Woman,” Choi’s second novel, tells the story of a young Japanese-American radical caught in the militant underground of the mid-1970s. Her first novel, “The Foreign Student” (1998), describes the experience of a war-scarred Korean man who arrives at a small college in Tennessee in 1955.

Choi has received the Steven Turner Award for the Novel and the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction. She also has been a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004.

The event is part of the Creative Writing Program’s Althea Ward Clark Reading Series.

Eberly to speak on religion and civil society

Don Eberly, founder of both the National Fatherhood Initiative and the Civil Society Project, will speak at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 9, in 16 Robertson Hall. His topic will be “Religion and Civil Society: Common Ground for America and the Developing World?”

Eberly has been an advocate for the revitalization of civil society, private philanthropy, the strengthening of core values, and the creation, maintenance and empowerment of nonprofit community organizations. He pioneered numerous social problem-solving initiatives while serving in senior positions in the Congress and two presidential administrations. He was deputy director at the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives during the George W. Bush administration.

Eberly is the author of the book, “Restoring the Good Society: A New Vision for Politics and Culture.” His lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Center for the Study of Religion.