Princeton University

Nassau notes

New Fed Chairman Bernanke to address Wilson School conference

Newly appointed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will deliver a public address at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall.

Bernanke’s speech, which is co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the University’s Center for Economic Policy Studies, will be his first public address outside the capital since being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He will present the closing keynote address for a conference on government service as part of the Wilson School’s yearlong 75th anniversary celebration.

Bernanke was a professor of economics at the University for 20 years until resigning from the faculty on July 1, 2005. He held a joint appointment in the Wilson School and the Department of Economics and served as chairman of the economics department from 1996 to 2002. Bernanke took a public service leave from the University in 2002 to serve as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. He was appointed chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in June of 2005.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Bernanke as the Federal Reserve chairman and a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Jan. 31, and he was sworn in Feb. 1.

Tickets for members of the University community were distributed through an online lottery. Members of the campus community and general public can go to the Richardson ticket office from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday, Feb. 23, to receive any remaining tickets that may be available. On the day of the event, there also will be a wait line for open seats that are still available at 5:25 p.m. at Richardson. Ticket holders will be required to show a picture ID to gain entry to the event.

Those without tickets may watch the address on simulcasts in rooms 10 and 50 of McCosh Hall. The event will also be broadcast live on the University’s Channel 7 and Webcast live at www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/.

The conference, titled “In the Nation’s Service: Changes and Challenges,” begins at 9 a.m. and concludes with Bernanke’s address. It will bring together practitioners, academics and policy-makers to examine the changes and challenges in attracting the best and the brightest to government service. It also will address the concept of government service as the highest form of service to the nation.

The program will feature Wilson School alumni, faculty and other experts in the field, including elected, career and appointed government officials. For more information, visit www.wws.princeton.edu/ 75thAnniversary/ events/ conf_service.html.

Conference explores Jewish philosophy

The resurgence of constructive Jewish philosophy in America will be the focus of a conference on campus Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 22-23.

Titled “The Renaissance of Jewish Philosophy in America,” the event will run from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday in the Whig Hall Senate Chamber.

Scholars and thinkers who have contributed to this renaissance will reflect on the role that the American context (ideals and realities, philosophy and politics) has played in influencing their work. They also will discuss the extent to which their intellectual agenda has been shaped by the social and cultural milieu of the contemporary American university.

Sponsors include the University’s Department of Religion and James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions as well as the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary. For more information, visit the Madison Program Web site at <web.princeton.edu/sites/jmadison/events/spring.htm>.

‘God and War’ is topic for three talks

Three talks on the topic of “God and War” will be presented as part of the Stafford Little Lectures Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 21-23.

Mark Juergensmeyer, director of global and international studies and professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, will speak at 8 each evening in McCosh 50.

He will address these questions: What purpose does the concept of war serve in times of social chaos and uncertainty? What is the relationship between violence and religion? How can the global terror war be contained?

Juergensmeyer is the author of several books, including “Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence,” which the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times identified as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. He has interviewed numerous religious extremists, including the individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Hamas leaders and abortion clinic bombers. He also has been a frequent commentator in the news media on the subject of religious violence.

The talks are sponsored by the University Public Lecture Series and Princeton University Press.

Noted figurative painter to present lectures, workshops

Figurative painter Zhi Lin will participate in several events on campus the week of Feb. 20 as a fellow in the Council of the Humanities and the Tang Center for East Asian Art.

Lin, whose work is deeply rooted in the study of Chinese visual culture, is a professor at the University of Washington-Seattle. A graduate of the China National Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Slade School of Fine Art at the University of London and the University of Delaware, he has shown his work in a number of major institutions in England, France, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan, China and the United States.

Lin’s large paintings and small studies are the result of more than a decade of work on a project, “Five Capital Executions in China.” The five large paintings, “Starvation,” “Flaying,” “Firing Squad,” “Decapitation” and “Drawing and Quartering,” are significant as portrayals of history and cultural critique. The sketch shown here is a study for “Drawing and Quartering.”

Lin will give two illustrated talks: “Zhi Lin’s Work: A Journey Across History and Culture” at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.; and “Self-Portraits: Investigations of Nature, the Past and the Present” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22, in 106 McCormick Hall.

He also will lead three workshops on “The Artist as a Critical Observer and Investigator” at noon Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in Room 302 at 185 Nassau St.

The events are sponsored by the Council of the Humanities, Tang Center, Program in Visual Arts, Department of Art and Archaeology and University Art Museum.

Panelists to analyze ‘Long Telegram’

A panel discussion on “George F. Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’” is set for 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in 219 Burr Hall.

Participating will be Princeton faculty members John Ikenberry, Aaron Friedberg and Stephen Kotkin along with the University of Virginia’s Melvyn Leffler. The event is part of a series, “60 Years Later: Critical Texts of the 20th Century,” celebrating the 60th anniversary of Kennan’s influential early assessment of post-war Soviet conduct and motives.

Kennan, a 1925 Princeton alumnus, was arguably the leading American diplomat during the early stages of the Cold War. His famous “Long Telegram,” drafted upon the request of the U.S. State Department in February 1946, was the origin of the policy of “containment” that defined America’s position toward the Soviet Union for much of the following two decades.

The panelists, who are experts on American diplomatic history and international relations, will comment on the historical significance of the “Long Telegram” and the lessons it might have to offer contemporary leaders.

The event is sponsored by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Council of the Humanities, the University Center for Human Values and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Former head of 9/11 victim fund to speak

Kenneth Feinberg will discuss his experience as head of the U.S. government’s September 11 Victim Compensation Fund in a lecture scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 20, in 16 Robertson Hall.

Feinberg’s lecture is titled “The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund: Private Pain and Public Compensation.”

Feinberg, a Washington, D.C. attorney and managing partner of the Feinberg Group, was appointed as special master of the compensation fund shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He spent nearly three years overseeing all aspects of the program, including evaluating applications, determining appropriate compensation and disseminating awards.

Feinberg described his experiences in the 2005 book “What Is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.”

The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Program in Law and Public Affairs.

Princeton Spring Dance Festival

Students in the Program in Theater and Dance are rehearsing for the annual Princeton Spring Dance Festival, set for Feb. 24-26 at the Berlind Theatre. The program includes “L’Après-midi d’un Faune,” a legendary French ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as several student pieces. From left, sophomore Jessica Baylan, senior Kristen Arnold, freshman Julie Rubinger and junior Natasha Kalimada rehearse one of the student pieces, “Orion,” choreographed by senior Silas Riener. For more about the Nijinsky ballet and the festival, see story in this issue of the PWB.