Food for Thought: A new Center for Advanced Study public events series featuring presentations of research and creative projects by recent CAS Associates and Fellows.

This informal series includes talks that were canceled after campus shut down in Spring 2020. With the possibility of in-person events once again, we are delighted to showcase the work of some of our most productive and creative faculty in a series of intellectually and spiritually invigorating presentations. You are invited to drop in when you can and enjoy a bite to eat while you learn about the exciting projects undertaken by our faculty. A brunch buffet will be provided at all in-person events.

11:00am, Lav Varshney, A Mathematical Theory of Creativity
Are there fundamental limits to creativity? Here, we define a mathematical abstraction to capture key aspects of combinatorial creativity and study fundamental tradeoffs between novelty and quality. Limit theorems that emerge are analogous to the limits of reliable communication in Shannon’s information theory.

Noon, Stacey Robinson, Future Spaces in Community Places
Professor Robinson will speak on the works he created from Summer through Fall 2020 in collaboration with two community activists and which will be featured in the upcoming semester-long exhibition Future Spaces in Community Places at the University YMCA’s ‘Art at the Y’ series. He will also speak about the process of creating Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre, the first graphic novel on the subject.