Author Karen Finley Reads from her New Book — The Reality Shows

No other contemporary performing artist has captured the psychological complexity of this decade’s political and social milestones as Karen Finley has in the past years. In her inimitable style, she has embodied some of the most troubling figures to cast a long shadow on the public imagination, and has envisioned a kind of catharsis within each drama: Liza Minnelli responds to the September 11 attacks; Terri Schaivo explains why Americans love a woman in a coma; Martha Stewart dumps G. W. Bush during their tryst on the eve of the Republican National Convention; Silda Spitzer tells the former governor why “I’m sorry” just isn’t enough; Jacki O cries, ” Please stop looking at me!”

“Karen Finley is a profound theater-artist. Her artistry is due in part to her ability to alchemize ‘news’ and make it art. She takes the viewer by the throat as she screams, cajoles, and seduces us into some awareness of the world at large… She is irreplaceable.” — Hilton Als, New Yorker theater critic

This event is co-sponsored by Labyrinth Books and Princeton’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Theater Program.

Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti in 1969 and moved to the United States when she was twelve. She is the author of two novels, two collections of stories, two books for young adults, and two nonfiction books, one of which, Brother, I’m Dying, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. In 2009, she received a MacArthur Fellowship.

This program is part of the Thinking Allowed series co-sponsored by Princeton Public Library and Princeton University Press. Additional funding for A Conversation With Edwidge Danticat has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Columbia Professor of History, Eric Foner and Princeton Professor of Religion, Cornel West to discuss Lincoln and the end of slavery in America on Monday, October 18th at 6:30PM at Labyrinth Books in Princeton.

In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner’s Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation’s greatest president and the issue that mattered most.

“While many thousands of books deal with Lincoln and slavery, Eric Foner has written the definitive account of this crucial subject, illuminating in a highly original and profound way the interactions of race, slavery, public opinon, politics, and Lincoln’s own character that led to the wholly uncompensated emancipation of some four million slaves.” — David Brion Davis

Eric Foner is Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author, among others, of Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, which won the Bankroft, Parkman, and LATimes Book prizes and remains the standard history of the period.

Cornel West is Professor of Religion at Princeton University. He is one of this country’s premier champions for racial and social justice and the author of many seminal books, including the contemporary classic Race Matters and, most recently, the memoir Brother West: Living Out Loud.

This event is cosponsored by Princeton University’s Center for African American Studies and Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding.

In his book,  No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life Thomas J. Espenshade, Professor of Sociology,  Faculty Associate,  Office of Population Research,  pulls back the curtain on the selective college experience and takes a rigorous and comprehensive look at how race and social class impact each stage – from application and admission, to enrollment and student life on campus.

Against the backdrop of today’s increasingly multicultural society, are America’s elite colleges admitting and successfully educating a diverse student body? No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal pulls back the curtain on the selective college experience and takes a rigorous and comprehensive look at how race and social class impact each stage–from application and admission, to enrollment and student life on campus. Arguing that elite higher education contributes to both social mobility and inequality, the authors investigate such areas as admission advantages for minorities, academic achievement gaps tied to race and class, unequal burdens in paying for tuition, and satisfaction with college experiences.

The book’s analysis is based on data provided by the National Survey of College Experience, collected from more than nine thousand students who applied to one of ten selective colleges between the early 1980s and late 1990s. The authors explore the composition of applicant pools, factoring in background and “selective admission enhancement strategies”–including AP classes, test-prep courses, and extracurriculars–to assess how these strengthen applications. On campus, the authors examine roommate choices, friendship circles, and degrees of social interaction, and discover that while students from different racial and class circumstances are not separate in college, they do not mix as much as one might expect. The book encourages greater interaction among student groups and calls on educational institutions to improve access for students of lower socioeconomic status.

Heath W. Lowry, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton will discuss his recent book, In the Footsteps of the Ottomans: A Search for Sacred Spaces & Architectural Monuments in Northern Greece

Professor Lowry describes Muslim sacred spaces today visited by Christians, as well as mosques that became churches after the Ottoman retreat from the Balkans. Many Ottoman monuments in Northern Greece are being restored and Lowry’s studies with photographs are an indispensable vade mecum for the Ottoman explorer.

Since 1993 Heath W. Lowry has been the Atatürk Professor of Ottoman & Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University.  Prior to that time he was a founding member of the History Department at the Bosphorus University in İstanbul, Turkey (1973–1980), and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection in Washington, D.C. (1980–1983).  Between 1983 and 1993 he established and directed the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, D.C.  Currently, together with his position at Princeton University, he serves as an Advisor to the Bahçeşehir University Board of Trustees in İstanbul, Turkey.

His earlier publications include: The Islamization & Turkification of Trabzon (Trebizond), 1461–1583 (İstanbul: Bosporus University, 1981 [Turkish] & İstanbul: Isis Press, 2009 [English]); Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine & Early Ottoman Society [with A. Bryer, et. al.] (Birmingham, England: Univ. of Birmingham; & Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1986); Fifteenth Century Ottoman Realities: Christian Peasant Life on the Aegean Island of Limnos (İstanbul: Eren Publications, 2002); Ottoman Bursa in Travel Accounts (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Ottoman & Modern Turkish Studies Publications, 2003); The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003); Studies in Defterology: Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth & Sixteenth Centuries, 2nd edition (İstanbul: The Isis Press, 2006); Defterology Revisited: Studies on 15th & 16th Century Ottoman Society (İstanbul: The Isis Press, 2008); and An Ongoing Affair: Turkey & I [Book I. The Bereketli Years, 1964–1966] (İstanbul, Turkey: Çitlembik; & Eden, South Dakota: Nettleberry, 2008).

His most recent works, all of which have been published by Bahçeşehir University in English & Turkish editions, are: The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350–1550: Conquest, Settlement & Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece (İstanbul, 2008); In the Footsteps of the Ottomans: A Search for Sacred Spaces & Architectural Monuments in Northern Greece (İstanbul, 2009); and Ottoman Architecture in Greece: A Review Article with Addendum & Corrigendum (İstanbul, 2009).

The Willow Street Book Chat is sponsored by Dr. Marvin Israel and meets periodically with Princeton authors and scholars to discuss current works of social significance.

Listen To This takes its title from a 2004 essay in which Ross described his late-blooming discovery of pop music. The pieces in the collection are dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, and are both erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history — from Renaissance dances to led Zeppelin — through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Bjork and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and to indie-rock hipsters in Bejing. Listen to This teaches us how to listen.

ALEX ROSS:  Listen To This offers a panoramic view of the musical scene, from Bach to Björk and beyond. In the Preface, I say that the aim is to “approach music not as a self-sufficient sphere but as a way of knowing the world.” I treat pop music as serious art and classical music as part of the wider culture; my hope is that the book will serve as an introduction to crucial figures and ideas in classical music, and also give an alternative perspective on modern pop. Listen to This includes material already published in The New Yorker as well as pieces written or heavily revised for the occasion.

The first chapter, from which the title comes, appeared in the magazine in 2004. The second chapter, “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues,” is entirely new—a rapid-moving history of music told through bass lines. The third chapter, “Infernal Machines,” weaves together various thoughts on music and technology. And it goes from there, touching on Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Cecil Taylor, and a dozen others. At the back of the book is a 4000-word survey of recommended recordings.

REVIEWS:

“Brilliant.” — Publishers Weekly

“A celebration of what it means to be alive in a world of great music.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Erudition is rarely so lightly worn.” — Details

“So graceful, so pithy, so thoughtful and full of insight.” —  Christian Science Monitor