Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: John Waters

This Filthy WorldMarch 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 career making low-budget underground films. His

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Simon Winchester

The Man Who Loved ChinaFebruary 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 and brilliantly polymathic in equal measure, did

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Alfred Brendel

Character in MusicNovember 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 of character and atmosphere is no

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Special Event, Tribute to Odetta

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) 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 for Human Values and the Study of Religion, the

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Philippe Descola

Cosponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Spencer Trask Fund. Words such as “nature” or “culture’” do not denote a universal reality that would manifest itself under the same guise to everybody, but rather particular ways of carving ontological domains in the texture of things that the Moderns have devised in the course of the past four centuries. Other

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Robert Hass

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, Hass has won several awards, including two National Book Critics Circle Awards. He received a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. His volumes of poetry

Princeton University’s Spencer Trask Lectures: Krista Tippett

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 Judith Weisenfeld (Department of Religion) will be the panel participants. Carolyn Rouse, Department of Anthropology, will serve as moderator.A journalist and former diplomat, Krista Tippett conceived the idea for “Speaking