T. S. Eliot

In 1948, T. S. Eliot accepted IAS Director Frank Aydelotte’s invitation to come to the Institute for Advanced Study for a period of two or three months. A month into his stay, Eliot was working on The Cocktail Party, his modern take on Euripedes’s Alcestis, when news came that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Director's Office

A Space of Thought and a Time of Mind

In welcome remarks delivered to the 2025–26 class of IAS scholars, Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg reflected on the Institute’s role as "a special place" dedicated to discovery. He emphasized how the Institute's history, culture of solitude and community, and spirit of dialogue create an environment where scholars can push the boundaries of knowledge.

Of Historical Note: A Community of Scholars

The Institute Letter Fall 2009

On April 10, 1955, the New York Times announced the publication of a bibliographic volume published under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, on the occasion of the Institute’s twenty-fifth anniversary. The...

T. S. Eliot at IAS

Kelly Devine Thomas

The Institute Letter Spring 2007

In November 1946, Frank Aydelotte (Director, 1939–47) invited the poet T. S. Eliot to come to the Institute for Advanced Study as a Member in the School of Historical Studies and the first unofficial artist in residence at the Institute. By the time...