After the 1960 and 1961 “Prince­ton news­reels” fea­tured last week, which marked a new stage in Princeton’s pub­lic rela­tions efforts, it is inter­est­ing to make a 30-year leap to view a film that was pro­duced for the Admis­sions Office by Andrew Greenspan: “Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity: Con­ver­sa­tions that Mat­ter” (1991). Focus­ing on the aca­d­e­mic cli­mate and intel­lec­tual exchanges, the film uses a markedly dif­fer­ent for­mat than the Orange Key Soci­ety film of 1962, which was also aimed at prospec­tive students.

This film uses footage of dis­cus­sion groups, lec­tures and sem­i­nars, and indi­vid­ual meet­ings between stu­dents and fac­ulty, touch­ing upon a wide range of sub­jects within the sci­ences and human­i­ties. Pro­fes­sors fea­tured include, among oth­ers, Cor­nel West (African Amer­i­can Stud­ies, 1.13 and fol­low­ing), Peter Brown (His­tory, 4:31), Robert Fagles (read­ing from his trans­la­tion of the Iliad 6:57), Toni Mor­ri­son (Eng­lish, 8:27 and fol­low­ing), John Flem­ing (Eng­lish and Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture, 9:05), John Con­way (Math­e­mat­ics, 12:36), Steve Mackey (Music, 18:24 and fol­low­ing), and Michael Littman (Mechan­i­cal and Aero­space Engi­neer­ing, 19:19). In addi­tion, the film addresses indi­vid­ual stu­dents’ research and cre­ative writ­ing projects. The footage includes an act­ing class by play­wright David Rabe (16:02) and train­ing ses­sions with bas­ket­ball coach Pete Car­ril (2:50 and following).