How do questions relate to creativity and purpose? Do artists, scientists, and humanists hold similar or divergent views? A new documentary film, Questions as Tools in Art, Science and the Humanities, offers numerous directions based on interviews with Stanford University–based MacArthur Fellows and MacArthur Fellows who have also been fellows or residents at the American Academy in Rome.

Questions as Tools was directed by Hideo Mabuchi, professor of applied physics at Stanford University, and Peter N. Miller, President of the American Academy in Rome. A thirteen-minute screening of the film will be followed by a Q&A with invited speakers from the film, followed by a reception.

Moderated by Mabuchi and Miller, the Q&A will feature interviewees from the video based at Stanford: Dan Jurafsky, professor of linguistics; Manu Prakash, professor of bioengineering; Monika Schleier-Smith, professor of physics; and Camille Utterback, professor of art and art history.

This event is free and open to the public. Please register to attend in person.

Additional public screenings will be held at Cooper Union in New York on December 4, 2024, and at the American Academy in Rome on January 27, 2025. Each event has the same format: a presentation of the shorter version of the film followed by a Q&A with invited speakers.

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Two versions of Questions as Tools were produced: a full 46-minute narrative and an abridged 14-minute account. Below is the shorter version. To view the longer film, please visit the Academy’s YouTube Channel.