2007-2008 Inaugural Lecture Series

Lecture Notes Lecture Series

Monday, October 15, 2007

On Juxtaposition: New Uses of Old Buildings at the Archaeological-Tourist Site of Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico

by Lindsay Jones

This presentation, by a historian of religions, moves from the general to the more specific. It opens with some very broad comments on the heuristic merits—indeed, the inevitability—of juxtaposing persons, ideas, symbols, objects and/or practices that do not, on the face of it, seem to have any direct or significant connection to one another.

Next—reflecting on juxtapositions of widely and weirdly diversified uses of very old buildings—is a brief inventory of ways in which long-abandoned pre-Columbian ruins of Mesoamerica have been variously utilized (or ‘revalorized’) as: (a) sites for the religious devotion of contemporary indigenous peoples and ‘New Age’ enthusiasts, (b) objects of archaeological, ‘scientific’ inquiry into the ancient past, (c) tourist destinations and economic commodities, (d) sources of literary and artistic inspiration, (e) outdoor museums for the construction of national identity, and (f) pawns in local territorial and political disputes.

Then, more specific attention focuses on the spectacular mountaintop ruins of Monte Albán, one of Mexico’s premier archaeological-tourist sites. This will include some reflection on (a) the pre-Columbian history and original religio-political conception of this once-great Zapotec city and (b) the post-contact history of investigation of the long-vacant capital. The final portion of the presentation will address (c) ways in which these Oaxaca ruins are currently functioning as a religious, economic, and cultural resource by addressing recent and on-going contestation over access, control, and ownership of this so-designated World Heritage Site.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Meaning of the English Definite Article

by Craige Roberts

The definite article the is by all accounts the most frequently employed word in the English language, correctly used and understood by millions of native speakers around the world over 60,000 times per million words uttered. Nonetheless, its precise meaning has puzzled philosophers of language and linguistic semanticists for over a century. The relevant literature is marked by a striking lack of consensus, which has led some to claim that the cannot be given a unified meaning, but instead has multiple, closely related senses. However, I argue that in its core, non-idiomatic uses English the can be characterized univocally. Its meaning rests on presuppositions about the shared information of interlocutors in a discourse, and only indirectly contributes to what is asserted about the world. This raises questions about the role of the presuppositional dimension in a correspondence theory of linguistic meaning, as well as about how we can so capably wield abstract meanings to which we seem to have no direct conscious access.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Religion and Secrecy: From Colonial India to the Bush Administration

by Hugh Urban

Professor Urban's talk will briefly discuss his research on religion and secrecy, beginning with his primary area of focus, northeast India, followed by a discussion of its relevance for understanding the role of religion and secrecy in current U.S. politics.

Monday, April 7, 2008

The Byzantines: Who were they?

by Anthony Kaldellis

How can you claim to be Romans when you call Latin a "barbarous" language?
-Pope Nicolaus I to Emperor Michael III (860s)

Trust not the Greeks, they live but to betray.
-verse by Liudprand, a Lombard bishop (960)

When the pope could not subdue to his arrogant will the Greeks and the emperor at Constantinople, who was hereditary Roman Emperor, he robbed him of his title and gave it to the Germans.
-Martin Luther, Open Letter to the Christian Nobility (1520)

The people we call the Byzantines believed that they were Romans. Their state, which they called Romanía, was the direct continuation of the ancient Roman Empire; their capital was New Rome (Constantinople); and their ruler was the emperor of the Romans. Yet this claim has never been recognized in the West, from the ninth century to today. Modern scholarship has given them a range of other identities, misrepresenting them as Greek, multi-ethnic, medieval, oriental, Orthodox, or ‘Byzantine.’ In this lecture, Professor Kaldellis will talk about being a Byzantinist in the twenty-first century and about our reluctance to respect the Byzantines’ notions of who they were and why they mattered.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

What's So Good (or Bad) About Saints?

by Karen Winstead

Throughout the Middle Ages, the saint's life was one of the most popular literary genres. Among modern literary scholars, however, few genres have been less popular. Moralistic, derivative, unsophisticated in structure, characterization, or theme—what's to like? Saints' lives do indeed tell the same stories over and over again, often with little variation; but even those little variations can tell us much about the people who wrote and read them, and over time, significant changes can be traced in how saints' lives were written and read, and why. Since the study of saints' lives as literature began in earnest in the late 1980s, medievalists have increasingly recognized that these stories convey messages not just about holiness but about a host of social and political issues. After a brief reflection on these trends in scholarship, I will turn to my own particular interest, fifteenth-century England, which produced extraordinarily rich saints' lives, historically and politically oriented, theologically and morally complex, and deeply concerned with psychology and character development. To illustrate these features, Professor Winstead will discuss two lives of saints who are also monarchs: John Lydgate's Life of Saint Edmund and John Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine. Both Lydgate and Capgrave, Professor Winstead will show, use saints not only to model good behavior but also, perhaps surprisingly, to warn of the dangers of excessive piety.