Nassau notes
Jodi Picoult ’87 (photo: David Levenson)
Novelist Jodi Picoult to read from her work
Novelist Jodi Picoult, a 1987 Princeton graduate, will read from her work at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in McCosh 50.
Picoult is the author of 14 novels, including her most recent work, “Nineteen Minutes,” which debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list earlier this year. Her other novels include “The Tenth Circle,” “Vanishing Acts,” “My Sister’s Keeper” and “Second Glance.”
Picoult has received the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association and a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, among many other awards. Her books have been translated into 30 languages in more than 40 countries.
The event is part of the Althea Ward Clark Reading Series sponsored by the Program in Creative Writing.
Health in poor countries subject of panel
Economics, health and public policy experts will participate in a panel discussion titled “Improving Health in Poor Countries: What Works?” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8, in 16 Robertson Hall.
Anne Case, director of Princeton’s Research Program in Development Studies, will moderate the panel. The panelists, whose work and research covers locations from Ecuador to India, include Princeton faculty members Angus Deaton and Christina Paxson along with Ingrid le Roux, a physician and director of the Philani Child Health, Nutrition and Development Project in South Africa.
The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Center for Health and Wellbeing are sponsoring the discussion.
Visual Arts exhibition
This mixed media piece by senior Jessie Thompson is part of an exhibition of student work in the Program in Visual Arts on display through Friday, Oct. 12, in the Lucas Gallery, 185 Nassau St. Exhibition hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Lectures explore the history of sin
“Sin: The Early History of an Idea” is the title of a three-night lecture series by religion scholar Paula Fredriksen scheduled for 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, Oct. 9-11, in McCosh 10.
Fredriksen, the Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University, earned her Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1979. Her lectures will provide a historical survey of the idea of sin in the first Christian centuries and will illustrate dramatic mutations in religious teachings about original sin.
Fredriksen’s books include “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” for which she won a National Jewish Book Award, and “From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus,” for which she received the Yale Press Governors’ Award for Best Book. Her forthcoming book is titled “Augustine and the Jews.”
Fredriksen also has edited and contributed to a collection of essays on Mel Gibson’s controversial film, “The Passion of the Christ,” and has been a historical consultant and commentator on numerous television and radio specials.
The talks, which are designated as the Spencer Trask Lectures, are part of the University Public Lecture Series and are cosponsored by Princeton University Press.
Mela festival celebrates South Asian culture
Mela, a festival celebrating South Asian culture and cuisine, will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at Scudder Plaza outside Robertson Hall. The event, sponsored by the South Asian Students Association, is intended to promote cultural diversity and bring the distinctive features of South Asia to the University and community.
Mela, a Hindi word for festival, will include food from a variety of regions of South Asia, live music, dance performances, henna artists and a fashion show. There will be a number of family-friendly activities aimed at educating the community about the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
“Our goal is to make it feel just like the street fairs of South Asia,” said senior Nikhil Bumb, president of the South Asian Students Association. “This is our first year organizing the festival, and we hope it will become an annual event on campus.”
The event will include performances from the student dance groups Naacho, Princeton Bhangra and Kalaa, as well as South Asian musical and dance groups from the greater Princeton area. Food and clothing from local businesses also will be sold at the event.
“The festival will not only be a celebration of South Asian culture, but also an exhibition of the wonderful fusion of cultures that shape Princeton,” said senior Anand Yegya-Raman, one of the student organizers. “We hope that both South Asians and non-South Asians alike will come away with a better understanding of the culture as well as an appreciation for the ethnic diversity in our community.”
Mela also is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Department of Art and Archaeology, the Department of Music, the Program in South Asian Studies, the University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts and the Undergraduate Student Government Projects Board.
Milberg Gallery exhibition
“La Huelga de 50,000 Trabajadores” (“Strike of 50,000 Workers”) is among the prints and posters included in an exhibition of works from Mexico’s foremost political printshop, El Taller de Gráfica Popular, on display at Firestone Library’s Milberg Gallery.
Founded in 1937, the workshop was a vibrant collective of established and emerging artists committed to the use of visual art in the service of social change. The exhibition runs through Feb. 10.
Kennedy adviser discusses missile crisis
Theodore Sorensen, an adviser to President Kennedy, will deliver a talk and participate in a panel discussion on “The Cuban Missile Crisis in Retrospect” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.
Sorensen, who served as Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and primary speechwriter, will present the keynote address at the event. He played an integral role in resolving the Cuban missile crisis and drafted Kennedy’s correspondence with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Sorensen then will take part in the panel discussion, which also includes Sheldon Stern, a former historian at the John F. Kennedy Library and author of “Averting the Final Failure: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings,” and Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton who studies 20th-century American presidencies.
The discussion will be moderated by Stanley Katz, a lecturer with the rank of professor in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The event is sponsored by the Wilson School.
Whitman College open house set
Members of the University community are invited to take self-guided tours of Whitman College during an open house scheduled for 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10.
Tours will leave from the Whitman College gallery next to Community Hall, the large limestone building that serves as the college’s dining hall; visitors should enter from Elm Drive. Refreshments will be served.
Whitman, which opened this fall, includes 10 buildings with residential, social and academic spaces, including the offices of the Princeton Writing Program, a 65-seat drama theater, a library, and lounges and study rooms throughout the complex.
Mudd exhibition
Early 20th-century photos from China taken by American diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray are featured in an exhibition at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library that runs through Jan. 18. MacMurray, a 1902 Princeton graduate, took more than 1,600 photos during his travels in China between 1913 and 1917, prior to his service as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1925 to 1929. MacMurray had postcards printed from his negatives to send home; this one features a scene at the Confucius Temple in Peking in 1914.
Nursery school holds open house
The University League Nursery School will host an open house from 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the school, located at 171 Broadmead. All interested families are invited to attend.
The school offers two-, three- and five-day morning programs on a cooperative basis for children ages 2-1/2 through 4, as well as extended and full-day noncooperative care for children ages 3 and 4.
The school is accredited by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Applications for fall 2008 are being accepted until Dec. 1. For more information, call 258-9777.
