Talks
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WILSON AND HUPPERT The Graduate Center hosts “Carte Blanche,” a French-American theater conversation series. Up next are director Robert Wilson and actress Isabelle Huppert discussing their French theater connections and their 1994 collaboration,”Orlando.” Tonight, 5 p.m., CUNY Graduate Center, Martin E. Segal Theatre, 365 Fifth Ave. at 34th Street, 212-817-8215, free.
SAUDI HISTORY The author of “The Saudi Enigma: A History” (Zed Books), Pascal Menoret, discusses the role of Wahhabism in contemporary Saudi Arabia. Tonight, 5:30-7 p.m., Carnegie Council, Merrill House, 170 E. 64th St., between Third and Lexington avenues, 212-838-4120, $25, reservations requested.
NORTHERN COMPLICITY Joel Lang, Jenifer Frank, and Anne Farrow discuss the North’s dependence on slave labor. Those who profited include members of the Brown, Tiffany, and Astor families. The discussion is based on their book “Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited From Slavery” (Ballantine). The talk is presented in conjunction with the exhibit “Slaves in New York,” which explores slavery in the beginning of the state’s history. Tonight, 6:30 p.m., New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at 77th Street, 212-485-9205, $12 general, $6 members, seniors, students, and teachers.
POTENT AND PROHIBITED An associate professor of comparative literature at the Cooper Union, David Weir,lectures on “The Green Fairy: Absinthe and the Culture of Decadence.” Absinthe, a wormwood-based beverage with a high alcohol content, was used by artists and writers including Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Joyce, and Hemingway. Its sale is still prohibited in America. Tonight, 6:30 p.m., Cooper Union, Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place, 8th Street between Third and Fourth avenues, 212-353-4195, free.
LAW AND HEROISM Writer and lawyer Scott Turow talks with Jef frey Toobin about themes from his new novel, “Ordinary Heroes” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book follows a son who discovered that his father, who worked as an Army lawyer in Europe during World War II, was court-martialed for releasing a suspected spy. Their discussion is expected to center on the role of law during war, secrets between generations, and the difficulties in reconstructing historical events. Mr. Toobin, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is the senior legal analyst at CNN.
Tonight, 7:30 p.m., New York Public Library, South Court Auditorium, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, 212-930-0855, $15 general, $10 seniors, students, and members.
BARNEYS RUBBLE The creative director of Barneys New York, Simon Doonan, tells some of the funny – and embarrassing – stories from his memoir “Nasty: My Family and Other Glorious Varmints” (Simon & Schuster). Mr. Doonan also discusses his attempts to join the “tribe of the beautiful people.” Tomorrow, 7 p.m., Makor, 35 W. 67th St., between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, 212-415-5500, $12 in advance, $15 at the door.
INDOOR OCEAN Author Bernd Brunner discusses and signs his new book, “The Ocean at Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium” (Princeton Architectural Press). Thursday, 6-8 p.m., Bard Graduate Center, 38 W. 86th St., between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, 212-501-3011, $20 general, $15 students and seniors.
GETTING INTO COLLEGE New York University’s Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy presents a panel, “Race and Class in College Admissions.” The panelists are a Harvard law professor, Lani Guinier, and a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, Richard Kahlenberg. Friday, 8:30 a.m., New York University, Lipton Hall, 108 W. 3rd St., between Mac-Dougal and Sullivan streets, 212-998-6808, free, reservations requested.
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