A Conversation on Creativity

A Conversation on Creativity: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Martin Perl and His Son The New Republic's Art Critic Jed Perl Discuss the Creative Process in the Sciences and the Arts

Moderated by Dean Keith Simonton

April 26, 8:00 pm @ the UC Davis Conference Center

Martin Perl is a Nobel Prize winning physicist as well as a professor at the University of Michigan and later at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). In 1995, Mr. Perl received the Nobel Prize in physics "for the discovery of the tau lepton." He shared the award "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics" with Frederick Reines, who was cited "for the detection of the neutrino." (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/951011Arc5066.html)


Jed Perl has been the art critic for The New Republic since 1994. His books include Eyewitness: Reports from an Art World in Crisis,Antoine’s Alphabet: Watteau and His World, and New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century, which in 2005 was an Atlantic MonthlyBest Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book. Mr. Perl is currently a Visiting Professor of Liberal Studies at The New School in New York City. He has written for many publications, including Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, Salmagundi, and The Yale Review, has lectured at museums and universities across the country, has spoken frequently on NPR, and has appeared on the "Charlie Rose" show. He is currently working on the first full-length biography of the American sculptor Alexander Calder, to be published by Knopf. (The New Republic, http://www.tnr.com/users/jed-perl)

Dean Keith Simonton has written extensively on creativity in both science and art. His books include Creativity in Science, Great Flicks, and Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity, which received the 2000 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. At present, he is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and President of the Society for General Psychology, and was the 1994 recipient of the UC Davis Prize for Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. Among his current projects is the Handbook of Genius to be published by Wiley-Blackwell. (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Simonton)

This lecture is sponsored by the College of Letters and Science, Office of University Development, Department of Physics and the Art Studio Program at UC Davis.

Directions to the UC Davis Conference Center