Oppenheimer Biographer Still ‘Emotionally Recovering’ From Christopher Nolan’s Film: It’s a ‘Stunning Artistic Achievement’

On May 18, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kai Bird joined IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg in Wolfensohn Hall to discuss the complex legacy of past IAS Director J. Robert Oppenheimer.

During the conversation, Bird, who co-authored the biography that inspired the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer, reflected on his hopes for the movie, namely that it will "stimulate a national, even global conversation about the issues that Oppenheimer was desperate to speak out about—about how to live in the atomic age, how to live with the bomb and about McCarthyism—what it means to be a patriot, and what is the role for a scientist in a society drenched with technology and science, to speak out about public issues."