Last year, Professor Johanna Bockman was a visitor at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. Albert Einstein also worked at the IAS, though at a much earlier time period, from 1933 until his death in 1955. Bockman conducted sociological research, wrote scholarly articles, and participated in the lively intellectual life of the IAS for the academic year. "The Institute for Advanced Study is a temporary paradise for professors," declared Bockman.
The IAS is primarily a place for professors to visit during a sabbatical year to write. The IAS also supports just thinking broadly. The IAS has about 30 permanent faculty members and about 200 professors (and some graduate students in mathematics) who visit each year. Everyone participates in weekly seminars, eats lunch together, and meets for homemade cookies and coffee or tea at 3pm every weekday.
Bockman gave a short talk titled "Is Globalization Even Possible?" and led workshop discussions on "Post-Socialist Studies" and "Economics and Sociology." She also completed articles on 1) the history of the Piet Mondrian murals in Washington, DC, 2) Yugoslav advisors who worked in the 1970s socialist governments in Chile and Peru (titled "What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about the Chicago Boys") 3) structural adjustment policies, 4) a public-private housing partnership in DC, and 5) the multiple globalizations moving through DC. Bockman concluded, "The Institute for Advanced Study provides a wonderful environment for intellectual exchange and solitary thinking that is key to innovative research and should be encouraged throughout academia."
October 10, 2018