Until fairly recently eternity was no mere abstraction or metaphor in the Christian tradition, but rather the ultimate destination for humankind, a metaphysical conceit with practical implications as inescapable as legal obligations, or taxes, or death. Eternity was an ineffable mystery, to be sure, but of no less value in human interaction than money itself, or crowns and thrones. In
Jesus of Nazareth announced that God was about to redeem the world. Some 450 years later, the church taught that the far greater part of humanity was eternally condemned. The early community began by preserving the memory and the message of Jesus; within decades of his death, some Christians asserted that Jesus had never had a fleshly human body at
A personal view of Mexican history, its different stages from the Indian civilizations to the present day. Novelist, scholar, and diplomat, Carlos Fuentes was born in Panama and educated in both Mexico and Washington, D.C., where his father was a member of the Mexican diplomatic corps. Fuentes studied law and served as director of international cultural relations for the Mexican
A talk about the unusual and unlikely forces that act on writers, including the speaker, and turn them to their vocation. Richard Ford, author of the recently published The Lay of the Land, won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and the Penn/Faulkner Award in 1996 for Independence Day. A native of Mississippi, he graduated from Michigan State University and received an
Pasquale Scaturro’s talk precedes the opening of “To the Mountains of the Moon: Mapping African Exploration, 1541-1880″ a map exhibition of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections in Firestone Library, to which all are welcome. Pasquale Scaturro, geophysicist, adventurer, and expedition leader is one of the most successful and accomplished mountain and river expedition leaders in the world
The visual culture of ancient Greece has left a record rich with information on the active role of women in the organization and functioning of cult. Connelly draws upon images from vase painting, portrait sculpture, votive reliefs, and funerary monuments to bring to life the movement of women within ritual space. Considering this material in the context of what we
Paula Vogel’s play, How I Learned to Drive, received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, and won her a second OBIE. It has been produced all over the world, and her screenplay has been in development for HBO. Her other plays include The Long
The technologies for high speed Internet access are racing ahead towards achieving gigabit speeds to the home, and hold the promise of a digital ubiquity in which any content can be delivered almost instantly on demand. However, the sociology, economics, and policies governing this capability are yet to be determined. What will fill these enormous pipes, who will own them,
From the reactions to British rule during the colonial era to the administration of George W. Bush, Americans have argued over two competing visions of their sense of national purpose. Different from Europe, special in its destiny, virtuous in theory if not always in practice, some of our leading politicians and thinkers have argued that America should be as good
Fifteen years after the launch of the World Wide Web and five years after the start of the Semantic Web, the web of documents is well deployed and work on the web of data is taking off steadily. This talk will discuss the challenges and deployment paths, as well as the the Semantic Web concepts and progress to date. Tim