Rudin Lecture to Feature Astrophysicist and Fiction Writer Janna Levin in “A New Experiment in the Third Culture”

For over half a century, there has been a chasm between the arts and the sciences–creating a gulf that has hindered the growth of both sides. Addressing this, Astrophysicist and fiction writer Janna Levin will deliver her remarks, “A New Experiment in the Third Culture,” during The Jack and Lewis Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Lecture at Marymount Manhattan College on Wednesday, October 17th.

WHO:  Astrophysicist and fiction writer Janna Levin

WHAT:  “A New Experiment in the Third Culture,” a Jack and Lewis Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Lecture

WHEN:  October 17 at 7 p.m.

WHERE:  Marymount Manhattan College’s 249-seat Theresa Lang Theatre, a proscenium house at 221 East 71st Street

RSVP:  Tickets are free. Due to limited seating, reservations are required. Please contact Caitlin Gansfuss at (212) 517-0471 or CGansfuss@MMM.edu

Levin’s work as an award-winning author of literary fiction, a Fellow at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing in Oxford and a professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College, Columbia University, exemplifies a growing movement deemed “The Third Culture.” In this talk, Levin will discuss the crossover between the arts and the sciences, sharing stunning examples – such as a Brooklyn collective of artists, designers, roboticists, engineers and biologists – of a new intellectual culture being born.

BACKGROUND

JANNA LEVIN

Janna Levin is a gifted young cosmologist whose debut book, How the Universe Got Its Spots, fuses geometry, topology, chaos and string theory to show how the pattern of hot and cold spots left over from the big bang may one day help reveal the true size and shape of the universe. Meanwhile her latest book, A Madman Dreams of Turning Machines, bridges fiction and nonfiction to tell a strange story of coded secrets, psychotic delusions, mathematical truth, and age-old lies. She re-opens the long dormant questions we all have about the nature of reality, and makes cutting edge science accessible to anyone willing to expand their mind.

A Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, Levin was recently named a Guggenheim Fellow (2012). Her scientific research concerns the early universe, chaos, and black holes. Her second book A Madman Dreams of Turning Machines won the PEN/Bingham Fellowship for Writers which “honors an exceptionally talented fiction writer whose debut work” and “represents distinguished literary achievement.” It was also a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway award for “a distinguished book of first fiction.”

Levin has worked at the Center for Particle Astrophysics (CfPA) at UC Berkeley, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at Cambridge University and the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford University, where she won an award from the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and Arts. Levin holds a BA in Physics and Astronomy from Barnard College with a concentration in Philosophy, and a PhD from MIT in Physics.

THE JACK AND LEWIS RUDIN DISTINGUISHED VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The Jack and Lewis Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program was established at Marymount Manhattan College in 2000 through a grant from The Rudin Foundation, Inc. Both Jack Rudin and the late Lewis Rudin have been well known throughout New York for the extraordinary contributions they have made to enhance the quality of living and working in New York City, and for their generous support of education, health, the arts and other civic, religious and cultural causes. Marymount Manhattan is honored to be the recipient of this special grant. This lecture builds upon the College’s commitment to academic excellence and its distinctive undergraduate programs in the liberal arts.

Published: October 27, 2012