The Institute Letter Spring 2023

Art historian Marilyn Aronberg Lavin describes how three busts attributed to Baroque artist Gianlorenzo Bernini shaped the career of her husband Irving Lavin, past Professor in the School of Historical Studies, and how she recently repatriated one of these artworks to Italy from her home at IAS.

The research of Visitor (2018–23) Eiko Ikegami has evolved from studying Japanese history to understanding 3D virtual worlds and the metaverse. Join her to explore how these two seemingly disparate fields are linked by ideas surrounding networks and "virtuality".

In this excerpt, Freeman Dyson, Faculty (1952–2020) in the School of Natural Sciences, ascends the New Court clock tower at St. John’s College, Cambridge during a wartime blackout.

Lynne Huffer and Andreas Folkers, current Members of the School of Social Science, join Distinguished Visiting Professor Timothy Mitchell to discuss the important and varied work of the Members participating in the School's theme seminar on Climate Crisis Politics, and consider what it looks like to live in and beyond climate crisis.

Based on her firsthand experience of shadowing workers on construction sites in Qatar, Natasha Iskander, Member (2022–23) in the School of Social Science, reveals how climate change and climate migration were exploited for profit at the 2022 World Cup. She highlights that climate change has a face, and that its consequences are made through specific economic and organizational practices.

Reflecting on preliminary results obtained from a seven-year HistoGenes project, Patrick J. Geary, Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies, describes how advances in the field of paleogenom­ics are not only revolutionizing the study of paleolithic hominids but are also allowing scholars to answer questions about much more recent history, previously inaccessible using traditional historical and archae­ological sources.