Princeton University

Nassau Notes

NEH chair to speak Oct. 10

Bruce Cole, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will deliver a talk on “American Ideals and National Memory” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10, in 104 Computer Science Building.
A scholar of Renaissance art, Cole was named the eighth chair of the grant-making agency by President Bush in 2001. Under his leadership, the NEH has increased its budget for research, preservation, education and public programs on American history and culture.
Prior to joining NEH, Cole was a Distinguished Professor of Art History and professor of comparative literature at Indiana University.
The lecture is sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions as part of its “America’s Founding and Future” series.

Conceptual artists to give illustrated talk

New York conceptual artists Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry will show slides and discuss their work at
4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10, in Room 219 at 185 Nassau St.
“Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry represent the forefront of a new generation of artists for whom the problems of the world today are first and foremost subject matter in their artwork,” writes Franklin Sirmans, a freelance writer and editor who is a lecturer in the Council of the Humanities this fall, in an essay on the artists’ Web site. “McCallum and Tarry’s photographs and video works illustrate how socioeconomic realities and political ideologies dominate ordinary, though highly personal lives. Presenting critical analyses in accessible forms, they merge performance, narrative and documentary images to create their art works.”
Their recent work, “Civic Endurance,” is a series of life-size color photographs and a video that together document a 25-hour endurance performance with homeless Seattle teenagers (one named T-Bone is shown here). The portraits were taken minutes before each youth took part in the “endurance performance,” which involved standing still and looking directly into the camera for an hour without speaking. The 26 youths gave their testimony during an audiotaped interview afterward. Each hour of real-time performance was compressed to five minutes, creating a finished work of two hours.
The event at Princeton is being sponsored by the Program in Visual Arts. d

Author explores war’s effect

War correspondent and author Janine DiGiovanni will present a lecture titled “Other Than Collateral Damage: The Effect of the War on Women and Children (Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa)” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10, in 16 Robertson Hall.
DiGiovanni is a senior correspondent for the Times of London and Vanity Fair and a contributor to CNN, National Public Radio and other media outlets. She has been working in war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and Chechnya for more than a decade, focusing on human rights abuse and war’s effect on civilians.
DiGiovanni’s books include “Madness Visible: A Memoir of War,” “Against the Stranger: Lives Under Occupation” and “The Quick and the Dead: Under Siege in Sarajevo,” which is being made into a film. She has earned numerous honors, including two Amnesty International Awards.
The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. d

Conference honors German playwright Schiller

An international, interdisciplinary group of scholars will mark the 200th anniversary of the death of German playwright Friedrich Schiller in a conference scheduled for Thursday through Sunday, Oct. 13-16, in various locations on campus.
The conference, “Friedrich Schiller and the Path to Modernity,” will feature 24 speakers from the United States and Europe discussing the works and influence of Schiller (1759-1805), who was a versatile playwright sometimes known as the “German Shakespeare” and an early representative of the modern intellectual. Speakers will address Schiller’s positions on problems of law, criminology, the penal system, political institutions, history and historiography, ethics and religion, government and society, psychology and psychoanalysis, among other areas.
Speakers will include Jutta Limbach, the former chief justice of the German Supreme Court and current president of the Goethe Institute, who will discuss “Schiller and the Law.”
The conference is sponsored by the Department of German. A full schedule can be found at <german.princeton.edu>. d

Miller to present Jones Lectures

Stanford University professor Dale Miller will present two talks for the Department of Psychology’s annual Edward E. Jones lecture series Thursday and Friday, Oct. 13-14.
He will speak on “The Norm of Self Interest” at 8 p.m. Thursday in 101 Friend Center. At 4 p.m. Friday, he will discuss “Misperceiving Group Consensus” in 0-S-6 Green Hall.
Miller, the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior and professor of psychology at Stanford, studies the impact of social norms on behavior and the role that justice considerations play in individual and organizational decisions. He has proposed that much behavior that appears self-interested reflects a cultural norm dictating that people should act in accordance with their self-interest, rather than a biological imperative to do so.
Miller, who taught at Princeton from 1986 to 2002, currently is researching the motivations underlying volunteerism.
The lecture series was inaugurated in 2000 in honor of Edward “Ned” Jones, a prominent figure in social psychology, who taught at Princeton from 1978 until his death in 1993. d

Irish painters to discuss their work

Irish painters Alice Maher and Dermot Seymour will give an illustrated talk on their work at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St. Both artists have exhibited widely in Ireland, Europe and the United States.
In addition to her paintings and drawings, Maher, whose lambda print “Limb” is shown at left, frequently creates works with materials such as rope and hair, focusing on themes of memory and identity.
Seymour, whose oil on canvas “Hound Dog” is shown at right, is known for his “social realist” approach toward Northern Irish politics. His work frequently involves a juxtaposition of images within the Irish landscape, particularly livestock, and religious and military symbols.
The lecture is sponsored by the Fund for Irish Studies. d

Development in Central Africa is lecture topic

Hope in Central Africa” is the topic of a lecture by international development expert Anthony Gambino scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday,
Oct. 11, in 16 Robertson Hall.
Gambino is the former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he directed a $60 million humanitarian and economic assistance program. He has more than 20 years of experience in international development issues, focusing mainly on Africa.
Gambino holds a master’s degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which is co-sponsoring the lecture with the Office of Graduate Career Services. d