On the occasion of the 1993 dedication of Simonyi Hall, Phillip
Griffiths, then-Director of the Institute, spoke on
“Mathematics—From Servant to Partner” in which he described how the
relationship between mathematics and other disciplines had...
In November 1946, Frank Aydelotte (Director, 1939–47) invited
the poet T. S. Eliot to come to the Institute for Advanced Study as
a Member in the School of Historical Studies and the first
unofficial artist in residence at the Institute. By the time...
Lakhdar Brahimi, former Special Advisor to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations, has spent the last year as a Director’s
Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, participating in the
School of Social Science’s program on “The ‘Third World...
In March, Professor Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Foundation Professor
in East Asian Studies in the School of Historical Studies, brought
together twelve international scholars who participated in a
workshop that explored “The Sense of the Past among Inner...
Seven lectures on the theme The Sensuous in Art were
presented by the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton
University in the 2006-2007 academic year. From medieval to
contemporary art, the series focused on what Yve-Alain Bois,
Professor of...
Occidentalism, as defined by Avishai Margalit, George F. Kennan
Professor in the School of Historical Studies, is a modern
phenomenon, a dehumanizing picture of the West, painted not only by
its enemies but in fact propagated from within....
It is noteworthy that as between two proofs of a theorem
mathematicians will prefer the one which, as they say, is more
“elegant,” a term which has primarily an aesthetic rather than a
logical significance. It is a striking fact that creative...
“There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more
than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of
partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in
these visions. The common element is rebellion against...
Arabia seems to have been a much more developed place than most
Islamicists (myself included) had ever suspected—not just in the
north and south, but also in the middle. We are beginning to get a
much more nuanced sense of the place, and again it is...
“First, as American citizens, we should not adopt the easy
anti-Americanism that fuels and disfigures so much of the global
left. We are critics of many aspects of our domestic society and of
U.S. foreign policy, but we also know that our country...
“The critics feel passionately that they are right, and that
their viewpoints have been unfairly neglected by the establishment.
They strike a populist note. They bring into the public arena
technical claims that few can properly evaluate. They are...
