D.C.’s favorite crime writer, George Pelacanos, will be at Politics and Prose this week. Image courtesy of the Hatchette Book Group.

DCist’s guide to lectures and discussions in the D.C. area

Tuesday:
>> Head over to the East Building Auditorium at the National Gallery of Art today at 1 p.m. for a panel discussion titled, The Role of Art and Architecture in Civic Buildings with Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, architecture critic Paul Goldberger, New School professor Joseph Urban, Yale art dean Robert Storr, and NGA curator Molly Donovan.

>> Tonight at 6:30 p.m., former student activist Mark Rudd will be at the K Street Busboys for a book signing of Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen. In 1968, Rudd chaired the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which protested the Vietnam War and racism at Columbia University.

Wednesday:
>> This afternoon from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m., UDC hosts Supreme Court historian and First Amendment expert Lucas Powe, Jr. for a lecture titled The Supreme Court and the American Elite, 1789-2008. Free, in Building 44, Room A-03 at UDC.

>> If you’re not interested in the Capitals playoff game tonight, you have a couple of alternate options. You may want to head to Sixth and I at 7 p.m. for the Slate Political Gabfest, with Slate political commentators Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz . They’ll be focusing on the changes in Washington with the Obama administration as well as our lovely economic situation. Q&A will follow the discussion. $10 in advance; $12 day of the event.

>> Or, be at Politics and Prose at 7 p.m. for an author event with novelist Colson Whitehead, whose Sag Harbor tells the story of “Benji who, each summer, catches up with his friends in a Long Island town where he feels comfortable; by contrast, during the academic year he’s one of the few African-Americans at his Manhattan prep-school.”

>> Non-Caps option three tonight is at 6:45 p.m. at the S. Dillon Ripley Center. St. Mary’s professor Fred Czarra will give an illustrated lecture titled Spices of Life: The Savory Story of the First Global Marketplace, in which he will discuss how “black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and chili pepper…have been used in cooking throughout history and how their spread influenced regional cuisines around the world.” $25.