NEW YORK CITY

The audience rose to its feet to fete former Czech President Václav Havel during a recent awards ceremony here, and as the famous playwright, dissident and head of state greeted people and shook hands, he seemed a little uncomfortable with all the attention.

"On a human level, I was not envious of him," said Chris Harwood, a Czech-language professor at Columbia University, watching the scene.

Czechs have long had complicated feelings toward their first president. Havel was the face of the 1989 revolution, but is often resented at home for his privileged upbringing, his celebrity and his championing of groups like the Roma, or Gypsies.

Outside the Czech Republic, Havel has always been treated like a rock star. And every trip abroad is like a reminder of that dichotomy.

Havel arrived in New York City late last month to begin a seven-week residency at Columbia University, where he is giving a number of lectures and public appearances. Already, the limited number of free tickets that the university has made available for many of the events featuring Havel are gone and there are waiting lists.

Like most first-year students at Columbia, Anna Couturier was a year old when the Berlin Wall fell and communism ended in Central and Eastern Europe.

"The Cold War seems so distant for people my age," said Couturier, who is covering Havel's residency for Columbia's student newspaper, The Daily Spectator. She said students are excited about his time at the university.

"He doesn't think in terms of boundaries, borders and international treaties."

The university is trying to make Havel feel welcome. For the first time, the core literature curriculum that all undergraduates must take has been modified to include a work from a living author: This semester, all first-year students will read Havel's The Garden Party, ahead of a lecture he is scheduled to deliver Nov. 10.

Columbia is not the only place that is marking Havel's New York City residency: Untitled Theater Co. #61 has organized a retrospective festival featuring all of Havel's plays at two theaters in Soho and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Havel plans on spending four months in the United States. After his residency at Columbia, he plans to go to Washington, D.C., to write and make use of the archives at the Library of Congress.

His lectures at Columbia will include a joint forum with friend and former U.S. President Bill Clinton Nov. 15.

Local tabloids have been following Havel's visit, reporting that so far he's attended a birthday celebration and fundraiser for Clinton at the Beacon Theater Oct. 29.

Other events across Columbia's campus are being tied to Havel's residency, even if he's not participating directly. A case in point was a Nov. 2 discussion between Orhan Pamuk, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, who is also in the midst of an extended residency at the university, and the professor Arthur Danto.

During the interview, Pamuk spoke at length about themes important to the life and work of Havel, such as the nature of political literature and dissent in a society in which official and personal truth are distinct.