Defining Wisdom, The Arete Initiative at The University of Chicago

FYI due Nov. 19
For more information visit
(http://www.wisdomresearch.org/?CFID=1826052&CFTOKEN=70129494).

DEFINING WISDOM. The Arete Initiative at The University of Chicago is pleased to announce a $2 million research program on the nature and benefits of Wisdom. Once regarded as a subject worthy of the most rigorous inquiries in order to discern its nature and benefits, wisdom is currently overlooked as a topic for serious scholarly and scientific investigation in many fields.Yet it is difficult to imagine a subject more central to the human enterprise and whose exploration holds greater promise in shedding lightand opening up creative possibilities for human flourishing. In 2008, up to twenty (20), two-year research grants will be awarded to scholars from institutions around the world who have received their Ph.D. within the past ten years.

Q and A with Nancy Klein (Department of Architecture)

We asked Nancy Klein (Department of Architecture), who is presenting on Wednesday, 3 October on "The Construction of Identity and 'Architectural History' on the Acropolis of Athens," a few questions about her work:


Please provide a few-sentence description of your presentation’s argument.

The Classical Acropolis has played a singular role in defining our understanding of Greek architecture. Following the Persian destruction in 480 BCE, the preeminent Athenian sanctuary was rebuilt under the leadership of Perikles. The building of a new sanctuary for the city’s patron goddess demonstrates both the deliberate and symbolic reuse of architecture to create a visual memory of earlier monuments that were damaged by the Persian invasion of 480/479 B.C. and the creation of new architectural forms with an identifiably Athenian style.


How did you hit on the focus of your current research and what interests you about it?

About seven years ago, I was invited to study and publish the fragmentary remains of limestone buildings that stood on the Acropolis before the construction of the classical buildings most people are familiar with today. Beyond exploring the nature of the architecture and providing a reconstruction of the sanctuary in its earliest phases, this research provides a unique opportunity to explore issues such as the role of architecture in defining a sacred landscape, how these buildings relate to religious activities, and how the built environment both reflects and directs civic identity.


What is the most interesting place your research has taken you?

I can’t select a single place, but one of the big attractions of a career in architectural history and archaeology was the chance to travel to interesting locations. So far I have had the opportunity to study and work in England, France, and Greece, and to travel to many more countries as well.


What is the favorite course that you teach, and why?

ENDS 149, an introductory course to the history of western architecture from prehistory to the 13th century. It is a subject I find endlessly
fascinating and the class draws students from the whole campus, which creates a dynamic atmosphere for teaching.


If you had the opportunity to invite any living humanities scholar to come speak at the Glasscock Center, who would it be and why?

One of the first names that come to mind is Ursula K. LeGuin. I’ve read
her essays and works of fiction and heard her speak, and she always
offers a new and challenging perspective.


If you were stranded on a desert island, what material would you want with you?

All the books I’ve accumulated and haven’t had a chance to read.

Harriette Andreadis Answers Our Questions

We asked colloquium presenter Harriette Andreadis (Dept. of English) about her work, her presentation, and herself. Here is what she told us:

• What is your presentation’s argument?

This presentation examines translations of Ovid’s Heroides as they evolve from the late sixteenth century into the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It focuses on the figure of Sappho in the fifteenth epistle as the principal guide to the trajectory of an Ovidian erotics that develops within a changing literary and cultural context in early modern London. My analysis begins with a brief survey of early translations and then explores in detail the additions, variations, and accretions that occur in the many editions (from 1680 until at least 1727) of “Ovid’s Epistles, translated by several hands,” originally gathered by John Dryden and published by Jacob Tonson both during and after Dryden’s lifetime, as well as the significance of the parodies of Dryden’s collection and the independent life taken on, a century later, by Sir Carr Scrope’s translation for Dryden of “Sappho to Phaon.” My work contributes to our knowledge of the life of literary coteries in early modern London, of early book history as it was guided by an important London publisher, and of early modern gender dynamics as they were mediated by London literary circles and their relation to the classics.

• How did you hit on the focus of your current research and what interests you about it?

I was asked to give a plenary talk on Ovid's Heroides in London and so I extended a section of my 2001 book on English translations of the “Sappho to Phaon” epistle. What interests me most about the project is the new directions in which it has taken me, particularly in the history of printing and London literary coteries.

• What is the most interesting place your research has taken you?

Geographical? Intellectual? This project has taken me for a wonderful visit to London. It has also moved my thinking in some enjoyable new directions.

• What is the favorite course that you teach, and why?

I can't answer this. I like all my courses equally at different times and for different reasons. Mostly, for me, enjoyment comes from the triangulated dynamic between a given subject matter, my students, and myself. I don't teach material I don't like, so what matters most to me is the intellectual curiosity of my students.

• If you had the opportunity to invite any living humanities scholar to come speak at the Glasscock Center, who would it be and why?

Scholar/researchers I'd really like to hear and meet in person are V. S. Ramachandran, Antonio Damasio, and Michael Pollan.

• If you were stranded on a desert island, what material would you want with you?

Material? I'd want binoculars, flippers, goggles, and a camera so I could explore the flora and fauna on the island and in the waters around it.

Graduate Internships at the Getty

Due Dec. 15.
Find more information at
(http://www.getty.edu/grants/education/grad_interns.html).

Graduate Internships at the Getty support full-time positions for students who intend to pursue careers in fields related to the visual arts. Programs and departments throughout the Getty provide training and work experience in areas such as curatorial, education, conservation, research, information management, public programs, and grant making.

The Smith Rischardson Foundation Foreign Policy Dissertation Grant

Due Oct. 31.
Find more information at
(http://www.srf.org/grants/world_politics.php).

The Smith Richardson Foundation is pleased to announce a new annual grant competition to support Ph.D. dissertation research on American foreign policy, international relations, international security, strategic studies, area studies, and diplomatic and military history.The fellowship's objective is to support the research and writing of policy-relevant dissertations through funding of fieldwork, archival research, and language training.

NEH and HEFCE Joint Information Systems Committee Grants

Due Nov. 29
Find more information at
(http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/JISC.html).

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the United States and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of the United Kingdom acting through the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the United Kingdom are working together to offer support for digitization projects in the humanities. Collaboration between U.S. and English institutions is a key requirementfor this grant category. Each application must be sponsored by both an eligible U.S. and English institution.

9th Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship

The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University is pleased to announce the award of its 9th Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship to Lois Parkinson Zamora, Professor of Comparative Literature and Art History at the University of Houston, for her book The Inordinate Eye: New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction (University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Zamora will give a public lecture and accept the book prize for 2007 on Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 4:00 p.m. in the Glasscock Building, Room 311.
The Inordinate Eye uncovers the transnational influences on Baroque art in the New World to determine how those relationships influence contemporary narratives and form points of resistance to European colonization. Latin American artists create a discourse of “counterconquest” that Zamora terms the “New World Baroque,” a hybrid form combining the diverse influences of indigenous, African, and European cultures in an effort to challenge the hegemony of Catholic and monarchical ideologies.

Zamora combines critique of visual art with discussion of fictional narratives to argue that an integrated understanding of each provides a better perspective to examine the epistemological structures that underpin modern and contemporary art in Latin America. The discussion ranges from the murals of Diego Rivera in the National Palace of Mexico City to the fictions of Jorge Luis Borges and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez. Zamora examines these artists and many more, and in The Inordinant Eye offers a comparative study that goes beyond the interartistic, exploring how diverse artistic media influence one another and provide a unified challenge to the colonizer’s gaze.

The Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship was endowed in December 2000 by Melbern G. Glasscock, Texas A&M University Class of '59, in honor of his wife. Mr. Glasscock, CEO of Texas Aromatics, L.P. in Houston, Texas, and has, with his wife, made numerous other gifts to Texas A&M University. In July 2002 they generously endowed the Center for Humanities Research, which was renamed in Mr. Glasscock’s honor.

The Book Prize is chosen by a committee of two humanities scholars from Texas A&M and one from another university. This year’s committee was Suzanne Poirier (Department of Medical Education, University of Illinois at Chicago), David McWhirter (Department of English, Texas A&M University), and Cynthia Werner (Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University).

Last year’s Book Prize winner was Beth Fowkes Tobin, Professor of English at Arizona State University, for her book Colonizing Nature: The Tropics in British Arts and Letters, 1760-1820. A complete list of previous Book Prize winners can be found on the Glasscock Center website at http://glasscock.tamu.edu.