Green finance, writers and lives, the police and communities, Remnick and magazines, Fascists and art, global politics and Chinese immigration, two masters depict African-American migration, and Bob Dylan’s baffling genius, all blowin’ in the February wind.
February 4 – a two-fer!
6 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
The Earth Institute | School of Continuing Education
The Field of Sustainable Finance: Foundations and Future Growth
The growing field of Sustainable Finance combines elements of corporate sustainability and financial principles including green accounting and carbon accounting, environmental markets, project finance, asset management and sustainable investment, and the impacts of environmental issues on capital markets. The following academics and practitioners will discuss how sustainable finance has developed and evolved: Steven Cohen, executive director and chief operating officer of the Earth Institute; Satyajit Bose, lecturer in the discipline of economics; Travis Bradford, director, energy and environment concentration, SIPA. Speakers: Frank Barbarino, vice president, Goldman Sachs; Michael Davis, director, institutional client relationships, Calvert Investments; Sonal Mahida, head of North America, networks and global outreach, the Principles for UN Responsible Investment Initiative; Kevin Parker, CEO, Sustainable Insight Capital Management; Amy Springsteel, director of corporate responsibility, Voya Financial. RSVP Required. The Columbia Club, 15 W. 43rd St.
7 p.m.
School of the Arts | Heyman Center for the Humanities
Creative Writing Lecture Series: Michael Cunningham
Author Michael Cunningham delivers a talk on his work and the art of writing as part of the School of the Arts’ Creative Writing Lecture Series and the Heyman Center for the Humanities’ Writing Lives Series. Cunningham is the author of the novels The Snow Queen, A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall, as well as the non-fiction book, Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown. Dodge Hall, Room 501. (Reminder)
February 5 – a tripleheader…
9 a.m. –12 p.m.
School of International and Public Affairs | Amadou Diallo Foundation (ADF)
Conference on Improving Police-Community Relations
A free event to discuss ways to restore trust between our communities and law enforcement. Welcome remarks from Dean Merit E. Janow and keynote speaker Hon. Eric L. Adams, Brooklyn borough president. The panelists include: Kadiatou Diallo, ADF president; Hon. David Dinkins, ADF board chair; Hon. David Paterson, ADF board member; Mr. Norman Siegel, ADF board treasurer; and Mr. Graham Weatherspoon, ADF board member. Q&A session will follow the panel discussion. Coffee and light breakfast will be served. RSVP required. International Affairs Building, 15th floor.
6:15 p.m.
Heyman Center for the Humanities
Music for Words: Bob Dylan
Christopher Ricks, the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University, and Sean Wilentz, the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, will discuss The Lyrics: Since 1962, the recently published comprehensive collected lyrics of Bob Dylan. Ricks collaborated with Dylan to complete the publication of the massive 960 page tome. In the words of Ricks, “For fifty years, all the world has delighted in Bob Dylan’s books of words and more than words: provocative, mysterious, touching, baffling, not-to-be-pinned-down, intriguing, and a reminder that genius is free to do as it chooses.” Heyman Center, 2nd floor, Common Room.
5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
The Italian Academy
Music, Fascism, and the Holocaust
Each winter, Europe and the United Nations commemorate the victims of the Holocaust on the date of Auschwitz’s liberation in 1945. The Italian Academy presents an annual academic event exploring issues of discrimination and crimes against humanity. This year’s program includes author, Harvey Sachs (Curtis Institute of Music), and music professor, Michael Beckerman (NYU). The Italian Academy, 1161 Amsterdam Ave. (Reminder)
February 12 – another two-fer!
6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Asian American Studies | Department of History
University Lecture with Mae M. Ngai
Mae M. Ngai, Professor of History and Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies, will give a lecture on the local politics in the gold-mining regions of the United States, Australia, and South Africa, where Euro-Americans first encountered large-scale Chinese immigration, the differences in politics among them, and the dynamics that brought them together into an idea with global force and reach. This lecture, “The Chinese Question and Global Politics in the Nineteenth Century,” will consider the broader implications for thinking about the relationship between the local and the global. This event is hosted by President Lee C. Bollinger and Provost John H. Coatsworth with a Q&A session followed by a reception. RSVP required. Rotunda, Low Memorial Library. (Reminder)
6 p.m.
Graduate School of Journalism
The Delacorte Lectures: David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker
David Remnick speaks as part of the spring 2015 Delacorte Lecture Series. The series examines aspects of magazine journalism by a leader in the field of magazine publishing. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker since 1998. Under his direction, the magazine has garnered 149 nominations for National Magazine Awards and has won 37. In addition, Remnick was named Advertising Age’s Editor of the Year in 2000. The Delacorte Lectures is headed by Victor Navasky, the George T. Delacorte Professor in Magazine Journalism and director of the Delacorte Center. Pulitzer Hall, 3rd floor, World Room. (Reminder)
February 19–20
Department of Art History | Archaeology
Ghosts of the Past: Nazi-Looted Art and Its Legacies
An international conference co-organized by Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology and Deutsches Haus, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and the Jewish Museum, New York. “Ghosts of the Past: Nazi-Looted Art and Its Legacies” convenes an international group of art historians, historians, curators, and scholars in provenance research and the history of German art dealership to explore an unexamined chapter of the legacies of the Third Reich. The conference opens with a keynote lecture at the Jewish Museum by Olaf Peters, a professor at Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg and curator of the recent exhibition “Degenerate Art” at the Neue Galerie. Register here. 501 Schermerhorn Hall, 8th floor.
February 20
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery
Bearden and Lawrence: Migrations
In coordination with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York, ten speakers, in ten minutes each, will reflect on personal journeys or odysseys, black migration (both nationally and internationally), and the two great African American master artists of the twentieth century: Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. “Bearden and Lawrence: Migrations” is inspired by the conjunction of Columbia’s current Bearden exhibition followed by MoMA’s new forthcoming presentation of Lawrence’s complete “Migration” series. An evening of reflections with Deborah Cullen, Leah Dickerman, Mel Edwards, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Robert O’Meally, Clifford Owens, Jodi Roberts, Robert Stepto, and Lowery Stokes Sims. Register here. 501 Schermerhorn Hall, 8th floor.
Highlighted above are general interest campus or NYC events of possible high interest to alumni, donors, and prospects. This listing is highly selective by design — regrettably, much more is omitted than featured. For RSVP, ticket availability, and other details, follow the links. As always, I appreciate hearing from you about future events!
