Humanities Council lines up roster of distinguished visitors

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Oct. 13, 2004

Humanities Council lines up roster of distinguished visitors

A prominent North African author, a well known choreographer, a major historian, a leading Mayan intellectual and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist will be on campus this year as guests of the Council of the Humanities.

The council, founded in 1953 to foster teaching, research and intellectual exchange, will bring more than 30 scholars to Princeton during 2004-05. Nineteen of the visitors will spend a semester or more at the University, while the others will come for intensive shorter periods of lectures, seminars and colloquia.

The public is invited to talks by these visitors, which are announced in the Humanities Council's calendar and in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin.

Long-term visiting fellows

These fellows generally spend a semester at Princeton.

Stuart Clark of the University of Wales Swansea is a leading intellectual and cultural historian of early modern Europe and author of the monumental "Thinking With Demons." As a Stewart Fellow in History and European Cultural Studies, he is leading a faculty seminar and teaching a fall-term course on "Sight and Seeing in Renaissance Europe."
Millicent Hodson is a choreographer and expert on ballet reconstructions. The creator of 10 ballets, she also has reconstructed 10 others, including "Le Sacre du Printemps." This spring, as Class of 1932 Fellow, she will work with dance and music students to reconstruct the 1925 modernist ballet, "Le Pas d’Acier."
Rebecca Comay of the University of Toronto works at the crossroads of philosophy, architecture and literary studies. The author of "Lost in the Archives," she is an Old Dominion Fellow in German this fall, teaching a graduate course on German responses to the French Revolution and leading a faculty seminar.
Nicholas Dirks, a professor of anthropology and history at Columbia University, will be a Stewart Fellow in History this spring, exploring the historical connections among religion, state and political theory in 18th-century Britain and India. His "Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India" won the 2002 Lionel Trilling Best Book Award.
Alan Hollinghurst, the distinguished British author, won Somerset Maugham and E.M. Forster awards for his "Swimming-Pool Library." His fourth and newest novel is "The Line of Beauty." Hollinghurst joins the creative writing faculty this fall as an Old Dominion Fellow.
Carla Hesse, a 1986 graduate alumna, is the author of a groundbreaking work on "How French Women Became Modern" and a leading figure in early modern studies. A professor of history at the University of California-Berkeley, she is Class of 1932 Fellow this fall, teaching the history of the book and leading a faculty seminar.
Thomas Laqueur of the University of California-Berkeley is an authority on the history of the body and related ethical issues. As a Mellon Fellow in the fall, he and philosopher Alexander Nehamas are team-teaching a seminar about friendship: the different roles it has played across time and how they have affected conceptions of its nature and importance.
James Porter, a professor of Greek, Latin and comparative literature at the University of Michigan, analyzes different readings of classical literature, both in antiquity and in modern times, showing how they reflect contemporary culture refracted through an imagined past. As an Old Dominion Fellow this fall, he is teaching a seminar on cultural receptions of Homer.

Short-term visiting fellows

During intensive week-long periods, these fellows lecture and participate in classes, colloquia and informal discussions. Four are designated Whitney J. Oates Fellows (*) in honor of the distinguished classicist and founder of the Humanities Council.

Jacinto Arias, a Tzotzil Indian from Chiapas and leading Mayan intellectual, holds a graduate degree in anthropology from Princeton. The author of influential books about Mayan thought, he has played a vital role in the resurgence of Mayan culture. Arias will visit in October.
Gillian Beer* of Cambridge University is a wide-ranging British scholar whose writings span literature, history of science, psychoanalysis, feminism, travel writing and British imperialism. Her "Alice in Space" sets Lewis Carroll’s books in the context of mid-19th-century controversies about mathematics, language, pedagogy and evolution. She will be a guest of the English department in the spring.
Tahar Ben Jelloun* is the most prominent North African author writing in French today. A poet, novelist and essayist, he is the author of some 30 books, including "The Sand Child," which reflects on tradition and gender roles in Islamic societies. Born in Morocco, Ben Jelloun earned a doctorate in social psychiatry in Paris before settling in France. He will visit the French and Italian department in the spring.
Mary Carruthers*, professor of literature and director of the Center for Research in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance at New York University, studies pre-modern thought and memory. The author of "The Book of Memory" and "The Craft of Thought," she will address topics related to medieval studies during her visit in the comparative literature department in February.
Nathaniel Dorsky has been making films for 40 years. They often are short meditations on transitory natural phenomena, lyrical epiphanies of sudden uncanny beauty. Film critic Stephen Holden praised "Variations" for its “transfixingly lovely evocation of randomness and evanescence in the everyday.” In the spring, the visual arts program will host public screenings followed by discussions with Dorsky.
Fredric Jameson* is a leading literary theorist and the author of 14 quasi-canonical books, including "Marxism and Form" (1971), "The Political Unconscious" (1981) and "Postmodernism" (1991). He continues to explore the borders of literature and film, 20th-century avant-gardes, the life and afterlife of Marx, the Frankfurt School and Sartre. He will be a guest of the English department in the spring.
Claudio Magris, an Italian novelist, essayist and literary critic, teaches German at the University of Trieste. A recipient of Italy’s top literary award for "Microcosms," he believes that writers rescue shipwrecked lives from the water and “take them aboard a precarious Noah’s Ark made of paper.” This is a utopian vision, he realizes, but “utopia gives meaning to life because, contrary to any realistic expectation, it demands that life have a meaning.” Magris will be a fellow in French and Italian in the spring.
Paul Mendes-Flohr, a professor at Hebrew University and the University of Chicago, studies German-Jewish history, philosophy, literature and culture. An expert on Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, he will be a Stewart Fellow in Judaic Studies in the spring.
John Nathan, a professor of Japanese cultural studies at University of California-Santa Barbara, is a filmmaker, translator and cultural critic. His films chronicle the disruptions of modern Japanese life. "The Colonel Goes to Japan" won an Emmy Award in 1982. During his October stay in the comparative literature department, Nathan will screen films, lead a translation seminar and talk about Japanese culture.
Franciscus Verellen, an eminent Western expert on Taoism, teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hosted jointly by religion and East Asian studies, he will be a Stewart Fellow in May, leading a seminar on "Community and Ritual in Medieval Taoism: The Way of the Heavenly Master."

Hodder Fellows

Recipients of this fellowship are humanists of exceptional promise who spend a year in Princeton pursuing independent projects.

Daisy Fried believes a poem should provoke “a precarious moment of awkwardness and excitement and complexity.” In 2000 she won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for "She Didn’t Mean to Do It." Fried reviews poetry for Newsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Adam Kirsch received the New Criterion Poetry Prize for "The Thousand Wells: Poems." His reviews and essays appear in the The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review and many other publications.

Visiting professors of journalism

Each year eminent journalists teach at Princeton, joining a roster that includes many of America’s most distinguished writers.

Jeffrey Bartholet, foreign editor of Newsweek, has been bureau chief in Tokyo, Jerusalem and Nairobi. The winner of an AIS Novartis Prize for International Reporting, he is a Ferris Professor this fall, leading a seminar on "Covering International News."
Richard Eder, New York Times book reviewer, former drama critic and foreign correspondent, will teach a graduate seminar on cultural writing in the spring as a Ferris Professor.
Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post is a member of the class of 1992 and covered Capitol Hill for a decade before beginning a new beat: the environment. As a McGraw Professor of Writing in the spring, she will teach students the investigative and writing skills necessary to cover fast-changing political events.
Gilbert Gaul has won Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting and public service. Now at The Washington Post, after many years at The Philadelphia Inquirer, he is a Ferris Professor this fall teaching investigative reporting.
Roy Gutman, foreign editor of Newsday, broke the story of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, for which he won both a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. As a Ferris Professor in the spring, he will focus on human rights from a media perspective.
Emilie Lounsberry covers the legal system for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her fall-term Ferris seminar, "Writing About the American Criminal Justice System," explores a criminal trial -- "the ultimate reality show" -- from different perspectives.
David Maraniss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post correspondent, has written five books, including "First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton" and "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967," which won the J. Anthony Lucas Book Prize last March. He will be the Robbins Professor this spring, teaching "The Literature of Fact."
John McPhee, New Yorker writer and a member of the class of 1953, is the author of 26 books and winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. He has been a Ferris Professor of Journalism since 1975, teaching two semesters every three years. In the spring, he will teach a seminar on "The Art of Non-Fiction" specifically for sophomores.
Joel Stein of Time magazine, widely known for his humor columns, also has written serious pieces, notably about the Sept. 11 rescue effort. His fall-term Ferris seminar, "Humor Writing," will help students find their voice, “particularly their funny voice. It won’t turn anyone into a David Sedaris, but it will show them that humor is one tool at their disposal in nonfiction writing.”

Belknap Visitors in the Humanities

Named in honor of Chauncey Belknap '12, this program sponsors visitors for one or two days at Princeton.

Twyla Tharp, the winner of a Tony and two Emmy awards, has choreographed more than 125 dances, including three Broadway plays. She will come to campus on Oct. 15 for a series of events, including a public lecture about creativity in everyday life inspired by her recent book, "The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life."
Toshiko Takaezu, renowned potter whose work is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will speak on Nov. 4. A member of Princeton’s faculty from 1967 to 1992, Takaezu is the creator of the bronze Remembrance Bell in Princeton’s memorial garden to the victims of Sept. 11 near East Pyne.