VICE VERSO Writers, intellectuals, and others gathered at the book-lined Verso offices on Varick Street for a holiday party last week. Verso describes itself as the largest radical publisher in the English-speaking world, with global sales totalling about $3 million a year.

Founded in 1970, the company’s name, which comes from printers’ argot for “left-hand page,” is a clever reference to its politics. In addition to new works by contemporary authors, Verso has published translations of French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher Walter Benjamin, and Frankfurt School theorists among others.

In attendance were freelance film editor James Ingram, who is writing his New School doctoral dissertation on universalism, and Liza Featherstone, who wrote “Selling Women Short: The Landmark battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart” (Basic Books). She said that Verso had nurtured her career by publishing her first book, “Students Against Sweatshops.”

Also present were sociology professor Robin Blackburn and Dan Lazare, author of “The Frozen Republic” (Harcourt) and “The Velvet Coup” (Verso).

***

HOLIDAY GATHERING Barbara Kerr hosted a holiday party on Thursday on the Upper East Side. Guests included CBS newsman Walter Cronkite; actress Tammy Grimes; historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and his wife, Alexandra; Michael Macdonald, son of New York intellectual Dwight Macdonald; a biographer of Arshile Gorky and Frida Kahlo, Hayden Herrera; the author of “Originals: American Women Artists” (Da Capo), Eleanor Munro; poet Samuel Menashe; and artist Paul Resika, a student of Hans Hofmann who has a forthcoming show in March at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries.

***

JUNTO REMEMBERS Members of Junto, a monthly New York discussion group that focuses on libertarianism, Objectivism, and investing, will celebrate the 100th birthday of novelist Ayn Rand (1905-82) at its next meeting, on January 6 at 7 p.m. at the New York Helmsley Hotel.

Junto, which was founded by businessman Victor Niederhoffer, is mourning the loss of Elliott Werner, who died at age 49 on December 7. Werner edited the organization’s newsletter, invited speakers to address the group, and was a vibrant contributor to spirited discussions. In Junto’s monthly e-mail, Allison D. Liebowitz described Werner as one who “spent his life in intellectual pursuit.”

***

NASAR NOTES The editor of Fast Company, John Byrne, hosted a luncheon at Lever House to celebrate the magazine’s “creativity issue.” Sylvia Nasar, the award-winning author of “A Beautiful Mind,” was the featured speaker, and she talked about her writing as well as her prior work in the business world. Ms. Nasar joked about having faced “no-win career” choices, such as forecasting long-distance rates with a group of economists at AT&T in New Jersey.

***

FILM FOCUS London-based filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien delivered the 13th annual David R. Kessler Lecture sponsored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. The executive director at Clags, Paisley Currah, quipped that two people would introduce the speaker with remarks that would be “brief yet profound.”

The first was an associate professor of performance studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Jose Munoz, who has a forthcoming book by Duke University Press called “Feeling Brown: Ethnicity, Affect and Performance.” The second was B. Ruby Rich, who teaches in the community studies department at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Among those in the audience was a new Clags board member, Richard Kim, who is a Ph.D. candidate in the American studies program at New York University and whose dissertation is on sexuality and 19th-century American travel writing. Also present was a former Kessler lecturer Jonathan Ned Katz and Columbia Law School professor Kendall Thomas.

***

KNICK-KNACKS Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz, who recently co-edited “The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad” (W.W. Norton), was nominated for a Grammy Award for album notes he wrote for a Bob Dylan CD set…Those who have the “The Encyclopedia of New York City” (Yale University Press) on their shelves might consider making room along side it for “The Encyclopedia of New York State” (Syracuse University Press), set to be published this summer…Robert Bullock will become director of the Archives Partnership Trust, a public private partnership that supports the New York State Archives. Mr. Bullock, who previously worked at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, begins his new job on December 30…The Knickerbocker caught up with University of Chicago-trained historian Jim Powell, who is author of “FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression” (Crown Forum). He said he has an upcoming book called “Wilson’s War”…Social Science, a publication of the Graduate Faculty of New School University, is planning a scholarly conference on April 14-16 on the subject of fairness. Invited speakers include Senator Obama, legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin, Jon Elster, Ira Katznelson, Alan Ryan, and Cass Sunstein…At an evening to benefit the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Warren Beatty accepted the Stella Adler Award on behalf of Marlon Brando. The audience heard anecdotes, such as how Brando and Mr. Beatty used to try to stump one another in remembering cell phone numbers and lyrics to old songs.