Dinner is a two-hour parade of dishes. The barbecue eel roll gets a double thumbs up. Stanger tells me that her son, Jakub, as if to prove to his mother that precociousness is inherited, recently had a short story accepted by a Vermont literary magazine edited by a high-school junior. Jakub is in fifth grade.

As the restaurant clears out, she asks to see the dessert menu. “Just looking at it releases endorphins in your brain,” she says. “It’s a fact.”

Outside, the spill of the city lights colors the night sky orange. Stanger sets off toward her hotel; she’s lecturing again in 10 hours. This time, instead of pajama-clad undergrads, her students will be officials from State and the Pentagon, alongside a small army of defense contractors. With the outcomes of two protracted wars, contracts worth billions of dollars, and the future of American foreign policy on the line, it should be a lively discussion.

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