Princeton Journeys Live Lectures

Past Live Lectures

• Princeton Journeys Lecture: Japan’s Magna Carta: Property, Inheritance and Gender in Medieval Japan

  Thomas Conlan, Professor of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University
  March 2, 2023

  In 1232, Japan’s first warrior government formalized the Jōei Code, which became the basis of Japanese law for centuries. After briefly comparing this code with the unrelated Magna Carta, this talk analyzes how this oft-amended code created a strong sense of judicial right, with particular focus on legal protections offered to women which were unprecedented at the time. Thereupon, the role of this code as becoming legal custom in later centuries is explored, before alluding to the existence of strong land rights in Japan today.
• Reclaiming Your Community — Designing for Talent Retention in Low-Status Communities

  Majora Carter, Visiting Lecturer, Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, Princeton University
  February 15, 2023

  Majora Carter discussed her book, Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One. Carter draws from her work and others’ who are breaking away from a non-profit industrial complex that views poverty as a cultural attribute to be maintained, but never resolved.
• Discovery of the Secret Gospels, Nag Hammadi Egypt, 1945

  Elaine Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion, Princeton University
  January 11, 2023

  Elaine Pagels discusses the 1945 discovery of the secret gospels near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt.
• Seeking Virtue in Finance: Contributing to Society in a Conflicted Industry

  JC de Swaan, Lecturer in Economics, Princeton University and Partner at Cornwall Capital
  September 28, 2022

  How can finance professionals live up to their humanistic values while working in what is often a deeply conflicted industry? JC de Swaan discusses the possibility of virtue in finance based on his research of ethical role models in the industry. Sharing stories of inspiring individuals in the field, he lays out a framework for pursuing a viable career in finance while contributing to society and upholding one’s integrity. In the process, he  discusses what makes finance a force for good in society while highlighting some of the unique challenges finance professionals face, from structural changes in the industry to cognitive biases.
• Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal

  Hanna Garth, Assistant Director of Anthropology
  May 11, 2022

  Princeton Journeys is pleased to partner with the Association of Latino Princeton Alumni (ALPA) and the Association of Black Princeton Alumni (ABPA) for our last lecture of the spring semester.

  Assistant Professor of Anthropology Hanna Garth discusses her book, ‘Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal,’ which follows Cuban families as they struggle to maintain a decent quality of life in Cuba’s faltering, post-Soviet welfare state by specifically looking at the social and emotional dimensions of shifts in access to food.
• The Founders' Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America

  Willard Sterne Randall *84, Emeritus Professor of History, Champlain College, Burlington VT
  March 9, 2022

  In 1776, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers concluded America’s most consequential document with a curious note, pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Lives and honor did indeed hang in the balance, yet just what were their fortunes? How much did the Founders stand to gain or lose through independence? And what lingering consequences did their respective financial stakes have on liberty, justice, and the fate of the fledgling United States of America?

  In this lecture, Historian Willard Sterne Randall *84 discussed his new book, The Founders’ Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America (Dutton, 2022) which uncovers how our country’s founders waged war, crafted a constitution, and forged a new nation influenced in part by their own financial interest.
• Forever Wild in the Adirondack Mountains

  Emily Wild, Chemistry, Geosciences and Environmental Studies Librarian, Lewis Science Library, Princeton University
  February 2, 2022

  Using photographs from hiking excursions and imagery from publications in the Princeton University Library’s geosciences collection, this tour of the Adirondacks includes information on local wildlife, fish, ferns, moss, trees, lakes, rivers, rock formations, mountains, minerals, natural hazards, local Mohawk (Iroquois) information and legends, and environmental regulations specific to the areas within the blue line of the Adirondack Park. The session includes how the Adirondack Mountains became "Forever Wild," and the preservation efforts of Harold A. Jerry Jr. ’41 to establish the Adirondack Park Agency.
• Second Revolutions: Thomas Jefferson and the Making of the Haitian Revolution

  Alec Dun, Associate Dean of the College and Historian of Early America
  November 17, 2021

  The Haitian Revolution, culminating with Haitian independence in 1804, was a major world historical event. Contemporaries understood the fact well, but, until relatively recently, most historians haven’t discussed it in the same ways as they talk about revolutions in the United States, France, Russia, or China. This lecture asks why.
• The Surprising Birth of Latin Literature

  Denis Feeney, Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton University
  October 20, 2021

  Virgil, Cicero, Horace, and other ancient Roman authors are so firmly established in the Western canon today that the existence of Latin literature is easily taken for granted. Professor Denis Feeney explains the surprising reasons why there never should have been a literature in the Latin language. This talk explores the conditions that gave rise to this unusual phenomenon, looking above all at the interaction between Roman and Greek culture from which the new literature emerged.
• Stories from the African Bush through the lens of the Mpala Research Center

  Daniel Rubenstein, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology
  October 13, 2021

  Princeton Journeys and legendary Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology Daniel Rubenstein describes tales from his decades of wildlife research in Kenya and greater Africa. 
• The Underbelly of the Dutch Golden Age: War and the Waterwolf

  Emmanuel Kreike, Professor of History
  May 5, 2021

  Celebrated as a century (1572-1672) of exceptional Dutch wealth, power, and culture with its shipping dominating the Seven Seas, the Golden Age paradoxically was also a period of devastating wars in and beyond its territories. The period’s undertone of war is dramatically bracketed by Pieter Bruegel’s 1563 painting Mad Meg (“Dulle Griet”) at the Museum Mayer Van den Bergh in Antwerp and Rembrandt’s 1642 The Night Watch (“Nachtwacht”) at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 
• Excavating an Ancient Cemetery: The North Abydos Expedition in Egypt

  Deborah Vischak, Assistant Professor, Ancient Egyptian Art History and Archaeology
  April 7, 2021

  Deborah Vischak discussed a major new research initiative that is excavating a cemetery site used from the early Old Kingdom (c. 2600 B.C.) through the New Kingdom.
• Evolution in the Galapagos

  Peter Grant, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology Emeritus, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Emeritus
  Rosemary Grant, Senior Research Biologist, Emeritus; Senior Biologist, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  February 24, 2021

  A conversation with legendary evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant as they discuss their four decades of work studying Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos Island of Daphne Major. As chronicled in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time and the acclaimed 40 Years of Evolution, the Grants have proven that that evolutionary changes can occur far faster than was ever thought possible and that evolution is a far more dynamic process than Darwin imagined.
• Making a Modern Central Bank: The Bank of England (1979–2003)

  Harold James, Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies and professor of history and international affairs
  January 27, 2021

  In a discussion of his most recent book, Making a Modern Central Bank: The Bank of England (1979–2003), Professor Harold James examines a revolution in monetary and economic policy as the Bank of England shifted its traditional mechanisms to accommodate a newly internationalized financial and economic system. Professor James also sheds light on the origins of the UK’s growing backlash against globalization and the European Union.
• Battle Lab: The Battle of Princeton in the Past and Present

  Rachael DeLue, Chair and Professor in American Art
  December 2, 2020

  Think outside of the classroom and explore the past in revolutionary-era Princeton and the physical remains of the legendary battle between American and British forces on January 3, 1777. What happened on that day? In this lecture, Chair and Professor in American Art Rachael DeLue, discussed how she and Professor Nathan Arrington have teamed up to help students answer this question through a new interdisciplinary course.
• Women Who Changed How We See the Universe

  Jo Dunkley, Professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences
  November 18, 2020

  In this lecture, Astrophysicist Jo Dunkley explained what she has learned from three amazing female astronomers, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Vera Rubin, and how they have changed the universe. 
• Jazz: Unity Through Diversity

  Rudresh Mahanthappa, Director of Jazz

  A lively conversation with Director of Jazz Rudresh Mahanthappa, widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century. Mahanthappa, who was born in Trieste, Italy, brought up in Boulder, Colorado, studied in Texas, Boston and Chicago before settling in New York, discussed the magical power of jazz music to bring people together across all cultures. 
• Einstein in Bohemia

  Michael Gordin, Professor of History; Director, Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts
  September 30, 2020

  Professor of History Michael Gordin discussed his most recent book, Einstein in Bohemia, which follows the intertwined paths of Albert Einstein and the city of Prague across the twentieth century.
• Syracuse as Spectacle: Images of Victory and Catastrophe in Ancient Sicily

  Andrew Feldherr '85, Study Leader and Professor of Classics
  June 10, 2020

  Study Leader and Professor of Classics, Andrew Feldherr '85, works on Latin Literature, with a particular interest in historiography and the poetry of the Augustan period. His first book, Spectacle and Society in Livy's History argued that Livy's manipulation of viewers' perspectives in his representation of the Roman past tapped into the political and religious power of spectacle in contemporary Roman. Playing Gods: Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction examined the role of fictionality in the poem in light of other cultural discourses, especially in the visual arts. Feldherr is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. On this journey, Feldherr helped travelers uncover the impact of the Roman Empire on each site visited.
• Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and Explorers of the Silk Road

  Dora C. Y. Ching *11, Associate Director of the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art
  May 20, 2020

  This lecture focused on the caves at Dunhuang, recognized today as one of the world’s richest repositories of Buddhist art and texts, and twentieth-century explorers who, by virtue of their surveys, helped shape the study of Buddhist art.
• The Political History and Governance of New Zealand: Queen Victoria, Biculturalism as Founding Footprint, and Global Aspiration

  David Huebner '82 S80, former United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa (2009-2014)
  May 13, 2020

  This lecture examined key touchstones of New Zealand’s history, society and cultural forms and discussed complexities beneath the country’s surface, often missed by visitors.  
• The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution

  Kevin Weddle *03, Professor of Military Theory and Strategy at the United States Army War College and former William L. Garwood Visiting Professor (2019) 
  April 30, 2020

  By the early summer of 1777, British forces in North American began the campaign that they believed would put an end to the American Revolution once and for all. However, a few months later, after a very promising beginning, they met with a military disaster that turned into an American political and diplomatic triumph. This lecture provided an overview of the campaign and its strategic context and aftermath based on a forthcoming Oxford University Press book of the same title.

   

• Art of the Invasion: Indigenous Australia and British Colonialism

  Jason Rudy '97, Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the author of Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies 
  April 16, 2020

  The arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay, 1788, began a catastrophic shift for the lives of Australia's Indigenous peoples that continues into our present moment. This lecture examined that history through the artwork of contemporary Indigenous Australians, including the painters Gordon Syron and Gordon Bennett.