After Hours Conversations 2019-2020
October - November 2019 ; February - March 2020
After Hours Conversations is a program of informal meetings that are held in the Dilworth Room in the lower level of Simons Hall, from 5:00 pm till 7:00 pm, on Mondays and Thursdays, in October and November and again in February and March.
These talks are open to faculty, members, visitors, staff, spouses, and partners in an effort to encourage cross-discipline communication at IAS. Professors Piet Hut, Didier Fassin, Helmut Hofer, and Myles W. Jackson will moderate the sessions.
The format is as follows. At 5:30 pm, someone will give an informal presentation of no more than 10 minutes, intended for a general audience. The topic will be a brief description of a major open problem in his or her field, together with suggestions for possible future progress with respect to that problem. This talk will be followed by 20 minutes of discussion, until 6:00 pm. During the remaining hour, everyone is free to mingle in more general discussions, preferably with others not from their own School.
If anyone would like to volunteer for giving a talk, please send an email to Piet Hut (piet@ias.edu), Didier Fassin (dfassin@ias.edu), Helmut Hofer (hofer@ias.edu), or Myles W. Jackson (myles@ias.edu).
To receive announcements of upcoming talks by email, contact Dawn Dunbar (ddunbar@ias.edu).
Note that all beverages including bottled water must be purchased with an IAS card. If you would like to purchase a drink, it would be best to arrive around 5:15, to allow the line at the bar to be processed before the start of the talk. Thank you for your cooperation.
Here is the list of speakers for the 10-minute presentations:
First Semester
Monday, October 7, 2019
Presentation by: Benjamin Wallisch, School of Natural Sciences
Title: From the Smallest to the Largest Scales: A Journey Through the Universe
Host: Piet Hut
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Presentation by: Karen Uhlenbeck, School of Mathematics
Title: Minimization Problems, Topology and Bubbles
Host: Helmut Hofer
Monday, October 14, 2019
Presentation by: David Lang, Artist-in-Residence
Title: Rewriting Beethoven's Opera Fidelio
Host: Piet Hut
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Presentation by: Myles W. Jackson, School of Historical Studies
Title: Scientists and Engineers and Musicians, Oh My! The Trautonium and Radio Broadcasting in Berlin in the 1920s and ‘30s
Host: Piet Hut
Monday, October 21, 2019
Presentation by: Robert J. Antony, School of Historical Studies
Title: Whores, Amazons, and Goddesses: Was South China’s Maritime World Feminine?
Host: Myles W. Jackson
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Presentation by: Jaco de Swart, Program in Interdisciplinary Studies
Title: How the Universe Went Missing: A History of the Dark Matter Problem
Host: Piet Hut
Monday, October 28, 2019
Presentation by: Daniel Varisco, School of Historical Studies
Title: Is There a ‘Medieval’ Islamic Era?
Host: Myles W. Jackson
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Presentation by: Ergin Bulut, School of Social Science
Title: What Does It Mean to Love Your Job When You Work in the Video Game Industry?
Host: Didier Fassin
Monday, November 4, 2019
Presentation by: Isabelle Guérin, School of Social Science
Title: Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics 2019: Can clinical trials really fight poverty?
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Presentation by: Joanne Lipman, Director's Visitor
Title: Lies, Damned Lies, & "Fake News": Can journalists combat interference in the 2020 election?
Host: Piet Hut
Monday, November 11, 2019
Presentation by: Lena Lavinas, School of Social Science
Title: Is Universal Basic Income a Response to Persistent Poverty?
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Presentation by: Webb Keane, School of Social Science
Title: Should I Wrap the Christmas Presents and Tip the Waiter? How to Be Social with Commodities
Host: Didier Fassin
Monday, November 18, 2019
Presentation by: Lia Medeiros, School of Natural Sciences
Title: A First Look at a Super Massive Black Hole
Host: Piet Hut
Thursday, November 21, 2019
[ No meeting this day ]
Monday, November 25, 2019
Presentation by: Eben Kirksey, School of Social Science
Title: The World's First Genetically Modified Babies: As Seen from Hong Kong's Cyberport Hotel Bar
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, November 28, 2019
[ No meeting this day; IAS is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday ]
Second Semester
Monday, February 3, 2020
Presentation by: Silvia Ghinassi, School of Mathematics
Title: Math, Shadows, and Digital Sundials
Host: Helmut Hofer
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Presentation by: Michael Solomon, Program in Interdisciplinary Studies
Title: How Much Suffering Is Too Much? New Jersey’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Law
Host: Piet Hut
Monday, February 10, 2020
Presentation by: Marion Fourcade, School of Social Science
Title: The Social Structure of Disciplines. American Economics and Sociology Compared
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Presentation by: Justin Stearns, School of Historical Studies
Title: Orientalisms Redux: The Varied Legacies of Edward Said's Orientalism
Host: Piet Hut
Monday, February 17, 2020
[No meeting this day; IAS is closed for President's Day]
Thursday, February 20, 2020
[Meeting cancelled due to a scheduling conflict]
Monday, February 24, 2020
Presentation by: Sarah Dry, School of Historical Studies
Title: What Can History of Science Do to Address Climate Change?
Host: Myles W. Jackson
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Presentation by: Ravi Kanbur, School of Social Science
Title: Some Paradoxes of Development Assistance from Rich to Poor Countries
Host: Didier Fassin
Monday, March 2, 2020
Presentation by: Joëlle Vailly, School of Social Science
Title: The Expansion of DNA Databases Used by the Police: What Social Logics?
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Presentation by: Rob Iliffe, School of Historical Studies
Title: The Peculiar Place of the Imagination in Science
Host: Myles W. Jackson
Monday, March 9, 2020
Presentation by: Francesca Trivellato, School of Historical Studies
and Julia Ott, School of Social Science
Title: Capitalism: A (New) Journal of History and Economics
Host: Didier Fassin
Thursday, March 12, 2020
[Meeting canceled due to a scheduling conflict]
Monday, March 16, 2020
[Meeting canceled, following coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines]
Thursday, March 19, 2020
[Meeting canceled, following coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines]
Monday, March 23, 2020
[Meeting canceled, following coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines]
Thursday, March 26, 2020
[Meeting canceled, following coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines]
Monday, March 30, 2020
[Meeting canceled, following coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines]