To Be Young and on Fire: Preadolescent Intellectual Passion

Thursday, February 14th, 2002
The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University presents

To Be Young and on Fire: Preadolescent Intellectual Passion

A Conversation Between
Susan Sontag, Oliver Sacks, and Freeman Dyson

A Public Event sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities

Hemmerdinger Hall; NYU Main Building,
100 Washington Square East, corner of Washington Place
7-9 PM

Provoked by the publication of Dr. Sacksís memoir of his short-lived but overwhelming pubescent passion for chemistry, Uncle Tungsten: Memoires of A Chemical Boyhood (Knopf October 2001), The New York Institute for the Humanities commences the Spring 2002 season by hosting an evening discussion devoted to preadolescent intellectual passion. Whatís the deal with such adolescent intellectual passions? Susan Sontag, Freeman Dyson and Oliver Sacks discuss. This event, preceded by Art and Optics: Toward an Evaluation of David Hockneyís Theories Regarding Opticality in Western Painting, is the second in a series of NYIH public symposia ìThe Two Cultures Revisited: Relations between the Arts and Sciences Today.î

Freeman Dyson, winner of the 1999 Templeton Prize, is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. He is, most recently, the author of Disturbing the Universe (Basic Books May 2001), an intellectual autobiography. Other titles by Dyson include Infinite in All Directions and Weapons and Hope.

Oliver Sacks, (a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities), is a neurologist perhaps best known for his books Awakenings (which became a Robin Williams/Robert De Niro vehicle) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, invokes his childhood in wartime England and his early scientific fascinations in his latest book Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.

Susan Sontag, (a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanitites), has written novels, stories, essays and plays; written and directed movies; and worked as a theater director in the United States and Europe. Her most recent novel, In America, won the 2000 National Book Award for fiction. A new collection of essays, Where Stress Falls, was published in October (by Farrar Straus and Giroux). Earlier this year she was awarded the Jerusalem prize for the body of her work.

The conversation will be open to the public and free; attendance in the 200-seat hall will be on a first-come/first-in basis. Accredited press representative can obtain passes for the entire conference or portions thereof by contacting John Beckman at the New York University Press Office at 998-6848. Questions may be addressed to Erika Kawalek at the Institute: 212-998-2100.