Princeton University

Nassau notes

Actor/director David Duchovny to speak April 27

Actor and director David Duchovny, a 1982 Princeton alumnus, will discuss his work at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 27, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

Duchovny gained fame as FBI Agent Fox Mulder in television’s “The X Files” from 1993 to 1998. He has starred in several feature films, including “Kalifornia,” “Playing God,” “Return to Me” and “Connie and Carla.” The 2004 film, “House of D,” marked his debut as writer and director.

Duchovny stars in a new comedy, “The TV Set,” about the making of a television pilot that will be featured later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The talk, designated as the John Sacret Young Lecture, is sponsored by the Program in Visual Arts and the Committee for Film Studies.

Albright to deliver keynote at Woodrow Wilson colloquium

Scholars, public officials, journalists and authors will discuss Woodrow Wilson’s legacy in a Princeton colloquium set for Friday and Saturday, April 28-29, featuring a keynote address by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The colloquium, “Woodrow Wilson in the Nation’s Service,” marks the 150th anniversary of his birthday and the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which is sponsoring the event.

Albright, who served as secretary of state under President Clinton and now runs her own global consulting firm, the Albright Group, will speak at 4 p.m. April 28 in McCosh 50. Other events will be held in Robertson Hall.

Wilson served as Princeton’s 13th president from 1902-1910, as governor of New Jersey from 1911-13 and as U.S. president from 1913-1921. A member of Princeton’s class of 1879, he joined the University faculty in 1890 and in 1896 delivered the speech, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service,” which inspired the University’s informal motto: “In the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.”

Topics of discussion will include: the League of Nations and efforts to secure peace through multilateral institutions; Wilson’s idealistic foreign policy; his views on women, minorities and immigrants in contrast with his progressivism; the evolution of the University since Wilson’s presidency; and what his exhortation to public service means today.

Registration is required for all events, and separate tickets must be obtained for Albright’s address. Other speakers will include: President Tilghman, who will lead a discussion with other university presidents; scholars from Princeton and various institutions; Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich; and journalists William Kristol and David Broder.

Registration and ticket information, a schedule of events and a list of speakers can be found on the colloquium Web site at www.wws.princeton.edu/pcpia.

Senior thesis exhibition

“Tiles I” (left) and “Untitled” are among the oil paintings by Aprajita Anand on display April 25-29 as part of the exhibition for her senior thesis in visual arts.

Hours for the show in the Lucas Gallery at 185 Nassau St. are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. An opening reception is planned for 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 25.

Justice Breyer to join Princeton’s George in conversation about liberty

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Princeton professor Robert George will discuss the evolving concept of liberty in an event titled “Active Liberty: A Conversation” at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 30, in McCosh 50.

The free discussion is a ticketed event open primarily to University students, faculty and staff, with a limited number of tickets available to the general public. The event is sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, the Program in Law and Public Affairs, and the University Center for Human Values.

It will be a continuation of a conversation begun in 2004 when George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and founding director of the James Madison Program, was one of two panelists to deliver a response to talks Breyer gave at Harvard as part of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Breyer’s lectures were later published as a book titled “Active Liberty.”

“In the lectures and book, Justice Breyer argues that the balance in constitutional law has shifted too far in the direction of liberty being considered freedom from the government’s interference with individual choice and action,” George said. “Breyer argues that it is time to place greater emphasis on liberty as participation in the enterprise of democratic citizenship in the American constitutional republic. It is liberty in this latter sense that Breyer is referring to when he titles his book ‘Active Liberty.’”

After what George described as lively exchanges between himself and the justice, Breyer accepted George’s invitation to speak at Princeton. At Breyer’s suggestion, they will continue the conversational format, rather than delivering formal remarks, and also will take questions from the audience.

The conversation will be simulcast in McCosh 46, where no tickets will be required. Tickets to attend the event in McCosh 50 will be available to Princeton students, faculty and staff beginning at noon Monday, April 24, at University Ticketing in the Frist Campus Center. Tickets will be distributed from noon to 6 p.m. through Wednesday, April 26, while supplies last. One ticket will be given per Princeton University I.D., and each student, faculty or staff member may present up to two I.D.s when picking up tickets.

A limited number of tickets for the general public will be available from noon to 3 p.m. Thursday, April 27, at the Richardson Auditorium ticket office. The general public may pick up a maximum of two tickets per person.

Nobel laureate returns for talks

Nobel laureate David Gross, the Thomas Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics Emeritus, will deliver the J. Edward Farnum lectures on “The Search for a Theory of Fundamental Reality” at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, April 25-27, in McCosh 50.

Gross, a string theorist, won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics with Frank Wilczek, who earned his Ph.D. from the University in 1975, for a discovery they made while working together at Princeton. They were recognized, along with David Politzer, for their fundamental insights concerning the force that holds the parts of an atomic nucleus together.

Now director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, Gross was a faculty member at Princeton from 1969 to 1997.

In his first lecture, he will trace the development of a theory of elementary particles and provide a personal account of the work for which he won the Nobel. The second lecture will address the unanswered questions that have provoked a search for a unified theory of all the forces of nature, including gravity. In his final lecture, Gross will discuss the current status of string theory and explain why he believes physicists are on the verge of a revolution in their understanding of space and time.

The talks are sponsored by University Public Lectures and Princeton University Press.

Conference honoring Alfred L. Bush focuses on photography and the West

An academic conference titled “Framing the Frontier: A Day of Lectures in Honor of Alfred L. Bush” is set for 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 29, in 101 McCormick Hall.

Organized by the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the conference will focus on the early photography of the American West and contemporary issues surrounding its collection, display and ownership. It is intended to honor Alfred L. Bush, who retired as curator of Western Americana in December 2002. Bush voraciously collected photographs of the American West during his 45-year tenure at Princeton, ultimately gathering some 5,000 images that recently have been cataloged by Heather Shannon, who will curate an exhibition that also opens April 29.

In the conference’s first panel, “Picturing the West,” the speakers will explore the place of photography in early expeditions to the West, in the rise of the western cityscape and in Native American consciousness. The speakers in the second panel, “Western Americana Photographs in the Archive,” will discuss collecting Western photographs, their display in exhibitions and the ethics and politics of photographic images in the age of intellectual property.

The conference will be followed at 4 p.m. by a lecture by Martha Sandweiss, professor of history and American studies at Amherst College, in 101 McCormick, and the opening of the exhibition, “Framing the Frontier: Photographers and the American West, 1850-1920,” at Firestone Library’s Main Gallery.

For registration and more information, contact Linda Oliveira at 258-3155 or loliveir@princeton.edu.