Does beauty matter? Should we value it? If so, why? Is beauty merely "in the eye of the beholder"? Or are there at least some objective standards of beauty—and ugliness. Is beauty something purely private and therefore irrelevant to public life and public affairs? Or do communities have a legitimate stake in beauty? Professor George will explore these and related questions. He argues that beauty matters—to the broader community as well as to individuals—because beauty can inspire us and cause us to aspire to do better and be better. People in communities like Princeton benefit in a variety of ways—some quite subtle yet still very important—from the beauty of the circumstances in which we live, bring up our children, and conduct our daily lives. We should be grateful for that, and diligent about protecting the beauty of our community for future generations.

Professor Zidar together with Professor Eric Zwick of University of Chicago are writing a book called The Everywhere Millionaire: Who is Really Rich in America and How They Got There. The book tells the story of how millions of Americans from nearly every town in America became wealthy private business owners, and how they are changing our communities and the nation. Here is the table of contents:

We are living in a time of accelerating instability. Climate change is no longer a distant threat-it is here, reshaping our environment, our economy, and our communities. For decades, national and global governments have failed to respond with the urgency required. This is not only a failure of climate policy, but a broader pattern of institutional stagnation in the face of mounting challenges. As Ezra Klein has argued, societies that cannot adapt and build will struggle to sustain abundance, safety, and trust. That is why action on the ground, at the community level, has never been more critical. The shift underway in climate action reflects this reality. While reducing emissions is still vital, we can no longer prevent all the damage. Warming that is already locked in will continue to drive rising seas, dangerous heat, and more extreme weather. But the consequences extend further. Climate change is destabilizing food systems, straining water supplies, disrupting energy reliability, and exposing the fragility of global economic interdependence. These cascading effects threaten the essentials of daily life and demand resilience strategies that reach far beyond sandbags and cooling centers. Local governments and communities are uniquely positioned to meet these challenges. Unlike climate mitigation, which depends heavily on federal and international policy, adaptation is inherently local. It is about redesigning infrastructure, rethinking land use, strengthening local food and energy systems, preparing for emergencies, and building networks of trust and mutual aid. In New Jersey, programs like Sustainable Jersey are providing the tools, technical assistance, and implementation framework that municipalities need to lead. From resilience planning and vulnerability assessments to local energy initiatives, towns across the state are showing what is possible. By acting locally, we can not only weather global instability but create stronger, more self-reliant, and more hopeful communities.

My talk to about the mixed legacy of my grandfather, C.F. Seabrook who created an agricultural empire of frozen vegetables on South Jersey called Seabrook Farms. Revered by many of his workers as a humanitarian business leader who inspired and in some cases saved them, he turned on his own family, destroyed his relationships with his sons, and in the process wrecked the business. My father only revealed the truth about his father after he died when he left me proof of the kind of man my grandfather was. In writing The Spinach King, I had to reconcile the official mythologized portrait of C.F. Seabrook with the way he treated his family, and my father's posthumous desire for revenge.

Bingham's second book, Class Action: The Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law (with Laura Leedy Gansler, Doubleday 2002), was adapted into the 2005 feature film North Country (Warner Bros.) staring Charlize Theron and Francis McDormand. She is also the author of Women on the Hill: Challenging the Culture of Congress (Times Books 1997). A graduate of Harvard College (1985), Bingham got her start in journalism as a correspondent in the Washington, DC bureau of Newsweek magazine.

Stories are etched into the very structure of our brains, coded so deeply that the impulse for storytelling survives and even surges after the most devastating injuries. But the stories our brains concoct are also malleable, shaped by cultural narratives about bodies and illness that permeate the minds of doctors and patients alike. In this talk by a practicing neurologist, we will use medical history, mythology, neurologic symptoms, and science to explore the intersection between storytelling and the brain.