Coloured engraving after J.T. Balcomb depicting an Edison phonograph with a carbon microphone, 1878 / Wellcome Library Dr. Eva Moreda Rodríguez on the formative years of the recording industry, focusing on the culture surrounding the gabinetes fonográficos of fin-de-siècle Spain. By Dr. Eva Moreda Rodriguez / 07.12.2017 Lecturer in Music University of Glasgow To the question “When[…]
By Dr. Ayalla A. Ruvio / 07.02.2017 Assistant Professor of Marketing Michigan State University While you might think of Spam as a basic canned meat, it’s actually one of the greatest business success stories of all time: Since Hormel Foods Corporation launched the affordable, canned pork product in 1937, it’s sold over eight billion cans in 44 countries around[…]
From ‘Le Livre des merveilles de Marco Polo’. / Biblioteque Nationale, Paris By Ben Thomas / 04.04.2017 Editor The Strange Continent Cannibalism is not uncommon. Humans have long enshrined the consumption of human flesh in sacred ritual – not just a few times, but again and again, in almost every corner of the globe. Evidence[…]
Hundreds of new images from Thoreau’s collection of plant specimens will be available for viewing online. “I think it’s fair to say that the data that live inside these cabinets has been dark for far too long,” said Charles Davis (pictured), director of the Harvard University Herbaria. / Jon Chase, Harvard Staff Photographer By Alvin Powell[…]
May 5th, 1981, Housing Estate, North Shields, Tyneside, negative, 1981; print, 2014, Chris Killip. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of and © Chris Killip The artist from the Isle of Man speaks about the advantage of shooting with a big camera, getting close to your subjects, and the danger of shooting digital. By Laura Hubber /[…]
In Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur,’ a character complains that young people are too sexually promiscuous. The British Library By Dr. Eric Weiskott / 07.05.2017 Assistant Professor of English Boston College As a millennial and a teacher of millennials, I’m growing weary of think pieces blaming my generation for messing everything up. The list of[…]
Human ear complaining to Nature from the Spiegel der Weisheit manuscript (Salzburg, 1430). / British Library By Dr. Chris Woolgar / 04.28.2016 Professor of History and Archival Studies University of Southampton In 1440, a popular Lollard priest, Richard Wyche, was burned at the stake in London for heresy. An ad-hoc shrine sprang up at the[…]
The foundations of the church are currently lying in water about 1.5 to two meters deep. It is estimated that the structure collapsed in an earthquake. DHA photo Doğan News Agency / 07.06.2017 The remains of an ancient basilica have been discovered about 20 meters from shore in Bursa’s Lake İznik, according to local archaeologists.[…]
By Beth Guynn / 09.09.2011 Senior Archival Cataloger Getty Research Institute When we think of the Mexican Revolution, many of us probably conjure up images of Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata, two of the most well-known figures from the ten-year civil war (1910-1920) that raged across Mexico during the early years of the twentieth century.[…]
Dome of the Rock and Wailing Wall, Jerusalem / Photo by Peter Mulligan, Creative Commons By Dr. Michael W. Palmer / 12.09.2010 That Israel’s understanding of God changed over time is not a controversial claim. The biblical texts record significant changes very clearly. From Henotheism to Monotheism The twelve gods of the Greek Olympic pantheon with[…]
By Dr. Maria Rosa Antognazza / 11.30.2016 Professor of Philosophy King’s College London A nation is either strong or weak. A country is either bravely independent or cravenly beholden. You are either a follower of this school of thought or that one. Unlike many philosophers and politicians, the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz resisted framing[…]
A Houghton Library exhibit contains ephemera related to poet and scholar Henry David Thoreau, such as this annotated 1854 copy of “Walden, or Life in the Woods,” owned by a friend of Thoreau. / Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer As the bicentennial of his birth nears, it’s clear the College influenced him more than he’d have[…]
Lecture by Dr. Raymond E. Goldstein at the Museum of London / 11.09.2016 Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems University of Cambridge Introduction How do physicists and mathematicians think about hair? Everyone, especially those with their own hair, has surely been fascinated since their youth with the magical properties of bundles of hair: its “body”[…]
Wikimedia Commons By Dr. David V. Johnson / 03.20.2017 Writer/Editor Stanford Social Innovation Review When it comes to immigration, not all foreigners are the same. The treatment of non-citizen legal residents, for example, raises very different moral and political questions from the larger debate about who should, and who should not, be allowed to enter.[…]
Siayan Island / Creative Commons By Dr. Peter Bellwood (left), Dr. Eusebio Z. Dizon (center), and Dr. Armand Mijares (left) Bellwood: Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, Australian National University Dizon: Professorial Lecturer in Archaeology, University of the Philippines Mijares: Associate Professor of Archaeology, University of the Philippines Introduction Here we describe the layout of[…]
Lecture by Dr. Christopher Clark at the Museum of London / 09.29.2014 Regius Professor of History University of Cambridge I wanted to begin by taking us back to the 28th of June 1914, which I think is the right place to begin, we should begin at the very beginning, the very best place to start,[…]
The Seated Boxer, Museo delle Terme, Rome / Photo by Bradley Weber, Flickr, Creative Commons By Dr. Johanna Hanink / 06.26.2017 Professor of Classics Brown University This May, Greece’s parliament passed yet another austerity bill in the hopes of securing more European debt relief. For nearly seven and a half years, creditors have held the[…]
Druze farmers / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Eran Elhaik / 02.07.2017 Lecturer University of Sheffield It is in what we now call the Middle East that humans domesticated plants and animals, built the earliest cities, devised the first alphabet, and wrote the first literature. But while many of the mysteries in the region’s history still[…]
Detail from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues’ 1591 map of Florida, where David Ingram supposedly began his journey up the Eastern seaboard / Library of Congress If three shipwrecked English sailors really did travel by foot from Florida to Nova Scotia in 1569 then it would certainly count as one of the most remarkable walks[…]
“The music of Mendelssohn” / Project Gutenberg, Creative Commons Grounded in the theory that ideas, emotions, and even events, can manifest as visible auras, Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater’s Thought-Forms (1901) is an odd and intriguing work. Benjamin Breen explores these “synesthetic” abstractions and asks to what extent they, and the Victorian mysticism of which[…]
Ruins of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Rome / Wikimedia Commons By Caitlin Ryan / 08.2016 Historical Interpreter Scarborough Museum Abstract Venus is one of the most famous goddesses of the Roman pantheon, known for her grace and beauty. Her likeness was recreated countless times in a variety of different media. She was depicted in[…]
Card collaged by Joseph Cornell, enclosed with his letter to Susanna De Maria Wilson dated February 17, 1963. The Getty Research Institute, 2014.M.30 A look inside newly catalogued letters and collages by the American pioneer of collage and assemblage art. By Isabella Zuralski-Yeager / 06.27.2017 Special Collections Cataloger Getty Research Institute Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) is[…]
By Dr. Jocelyn Penny Small Classical Archaeologist and Art Historian Rutgers University Etruscan Studies 8:6 (2001), 130-151 Iconography and divination have much in common.[1] Both are divinely inspired. Their practitioners need years of training and inculcation in the art of interpretation before formal admission into the priesthood. The interpretation invariably depends on details, or should[…]
Triumphal Entry into Babylon (detail), Gérard Audran (French, 1640–1703) after Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–90), 1675. Etching and engraving, two sheets. Assembled size: 27 15/16 x 36 1/8 in. (71 x 91.8 cm). The Getty Research Institute, 2003.PR.33 By John Hicks / 05.27.2010 Research Assistant, Getty Publications Department Spin control—it’s been around for centuries. Louis[…]
Sandstone Etruscan relief excavation / Creative Commons By Dr. Dominique Briquel Professor of Archaeology and Latin Université de Paris-Sorbonne Etruscan Studies 10:12 (2007), 153-161 It may seem strange to associate in this way two entities which, at first glance, would seem to have nothing in common. The civilization of the Etruscans, which flourished in Italy[…]
Monument at the Osipovichi Jewish cemetery / Photo by Alexander Litin, 2009 By Jan Schwarz / 04.11.2016 Associate Professor of Yiddish Studies Lund University 27 (2016) Abstract After the Holocaust’s near complete destruction of European Yiddish cultural centres, the Yiddish language was largely viewed as a remnant of the past, tragically eradicated in its prime.[…]
The remnants of a Viking barn still stand at what had been the settlement of Gardar. (Ciril Jazbec) Newly discovered evidence is upending our understanding of how early settlers made a life on the island — and why they suddenly disappeared. By Tim Folger / March 2017 Science and Environment Specialist On the grassy slope[…]
Philharmonie exterior. Photo by Chris Edwards The German architect created unique designs blending Expressionism and the International Style. By Dr. Kathleen James-Chakraborty / 05.09.2017 Professor of Art History University College Dublin The exhibition Berlin/Los Angeles: Space for Music (April 25–July 30, 2017, at the Getty Research Institute) explores two iconic buildings, Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonic[…]
The Basilica of San Clemente, Rome, church rebuilt 1099-1119 (mosaic 1130s) with eighteenth-century renovations (photo: Michael Foley, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) By Dr. Diane Reilly / 06.14.2017 Associate Professor of Art History, Department Chair Indiana University A shrunken Rome By the twelfth century, the city of Rome was a shadow of its former, imperial Roman self.[…]
Five generations of a slave family / Shutterstock By Dr. Daina Ramey Berry / 06.19.2017 Associate Professor of History and African American Diaspora Studies University of Texas at Austin People think they know everything about slavery in the United States, but they don’t. They think the majority of African slaves came to the American colonies,[…]