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Gregory Jusdanis, Humanities Distinguished Professor of Classics, researches modern Greek literature and culture, including the poet C. P. Cavafy. His recent work has been a biography of Cavafy, co-written with Peter Jeffries, exploring, among other areas, how Cavafy rejected his early poetry and found new expressions in his later years. For more of his discussion with David Staley, listen to this week's Voices of Excellence
Frank T. Coulson is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Director of Palaeography at the Ohio State University. He spoke to us about co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Latin Paleography, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and about the state of the field.
Dan Pierce is UNC-Asheville's National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. He's written several books on the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Pierce attributes his love of the park to first passing through it on Highway 441 when his family moved to Asheville from Arkansas in the 1950's. His book Hazel Creek: The Life and Death of an Iconic Mountain Community, will be the subject of a lecture Saturday at UNC-Asheville's Reuter Center. That's the home of OLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Hazel Creek was a boom and bust town that eventually disappeared with the creation of the park and the construction of the Fontanna Dam. The reservoir created by the dam covers the area where Hazel Creek once stood. The history of the town - as well as the process that created the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - can still be felt today Pierce says, especially in how the federal government is viewed by many residents in the mountains of Western North Carolina. (Timeline of interview) :23 - What was Hazel Creek? 1:21 - How many towns were there in the area that became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park 2:14 - What was intriguing about Hazel Creek that Pierce wanted to write about 4:22 - Why is there still lingering resentment about the process that created the park 5:20 - How does the process that created the park still linger today in how the federal government is viewed by many residents in the mountains of Western North Carolina 9:00 - What did Pierce learn about Hazel Creek as he wrote the book 17:18 - What is it about the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway (two most visited in the National Park System) that make them so attractive to visitors 24:42 - What is the lesson about how the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created that people need to learn
Dan Pierce is UNC-Asheville's National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. He's written several books on the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Pierce attributes his love of the park to first passing through it on Highway 441 when his family moved to Asheville from Arkansas in the 1950's. His book Hazel Creek: The Life and Death of an Iconic Mountain Community, will be the subject of a lecture Saturday at UNC-Asheville's Reuter Center. That's the home of OLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Hazel Creek was a boom and bust town that eventually disappeared with the creation of the park and the construction of the Fontanna Dam. The reservoir created by the dam covers the area where Hazel Creek once stood. The history of the town - as well as the process that created the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - can still be felt today Pierce says, especially in how the federal government is viewed by many residents in the mountains of Western North Carolina. (Timeline of interview) :23 - What was Hazel Creek? 1:21 - How many towns were there in the area that became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park 2:14 - What was intriguing about Hazel Creek that Pierce wanted to write about 4:22 - Why is there still lingering resentment about the process that created the park 5:20 - How does the process that created the park still linger today in how the federal government is viewed by many residents in the mountains of Western North Carolina 9:00 - What did Pierce learn about Hazel Creek as he wrote the book 17:18 - What is it about the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway (two most visited in the National Park System) that make them so attractive to visitors 24:42 - What is the lesson about how the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created that people need to learn
Is music an evolutionary adaptation? This lecture doesn't answer that question. Instead we consider some of the tools available for addressing the issue. One of the foremost tools is "following the money" of pleasure: Adaptive behaviors are encouraged through a combination pleasure and pain. By examining the specific pleasures evoked by music, we can better infer what adaptive functions might be served through music-making. David Huron is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor at the Ohio State University, where he holds joint appointments in the School of Music and in the Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Trained as a performer, Huron worked for several years as a composer before turning to research. Over the course of his career he has produced some 130 scholarly publications, including two books. Among other distinctions, Dr. Huron was the Ernest Bloch Visiting Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, the Donald Wort Lecturer at Cambridge University, and the Astor Lecturer at Oxford. Apart from laboratory-based research, Dr. Huron's activities have also involved field studies among various cultures in Micronesia.
Who are the Turks? The answer differs vastly, depending on whether we start from today's Turkey and look back, or whether we start with their origins in what is now Mongolia and look forward. Do the Turkish peoples even form a coherent category? The answer differs vastly, depending on whether we look at their languages (which are very much alike), environmental adaptations, religions, or physical features. (There is no determinant "racial" identity at all). What about their pre-modern history was most significant? One way to answer is to start with the paradox that nomadic peoples always resist state authority, and yet all across Eurasia, the Turks and their cultural cousins, the Mongols, took leading roles in empire building. What about their modern history is most significant? The most significant fact here is that the Turks of Central Asia lost sovereignty, while the Ottoman Empire retained its sovereignty. The Ottomans developed the Islamic tradition of state formation, which evolved into the twentieth century. By comparison with other Muslim-majority polities, the unique course that the Turkish republic has since taken reflects its historical antecedents as much as the choices made by its modern leaders. Carter Vaughn Findley is Humanities Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the Ohio State University. He is the author ofThe Turks in World History, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social Historyand Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte 1789-1922. He is a past president of the World History Association and the Turkish Studies Association.
Panel II: Human Rights in the Twentieth Century Carole Fink, Humanities Distinguished Professor of History, Ohio State University | “Minority Rights/Human Rights: The Versailles System in Perspective” Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Columbia University | “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 in the History of Cosmopolitanism”
Responses and Discussion for: Panel II: Human Rights in the Twentieth Century Carole Fink, Humanities Distinguished Professor of History, Ohio State University | “Minority Rights/Human Rights: The Versailles System in Perspective” Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Columbia University | “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 in the History of Cosmopolitanism”
Richard Dutton, English Department Chair and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, Ohio State University, and Richard Harp, English Department Chair, UNLV.