Ancient Greek Curse Tablets
For centuries, scholars taught that the ancient Greeks had risen above magic and superstition and build a society based on rational thought. When confronted with evidence of Greek curse tablets and other magical practices, nineteenth-century classicist...
Ancient Egyptian Society and Family Life
What was daily life like for the ancient Egyptians? In many ways, people today share similar values and life ways--a strong emphasis on the nuclear family, the love for social activities, and an attachment to appearance and fashion. Emily Teeter, an Eg...
'Democracy Dies Behind Closed Doors': Civil Liberties and National Defense
Can the United States be both safe and free? According to Nadine Strossen, law professor and president of the American Civil Liberties Union, there should be 'no inherent conflict between national defense and civil liberties,' and she sharply criticize...
Why We Dig Up the Past
Many of the mysteries of the past cannot be decoded by theorizing or lab work alone; they must be unearthed. At a panel organized for the University of Chicago's reunion weekend, leading scholars discuss what motivates them to dig for answers in desert...
Why It Helps to Read Great Books: Texts, Society and Time
The great works of Western literature, from the Bible through St. Augustine's City of God and forward in time to Karl Marx's Capital, furnish ample room for readers to reflect and analyze. Constantin Fasolt, professor of medieval and early modern hist...
Virtue and Virtuality: Gender in the Self-Representations of Queen Elizabeth I
England's Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603), publicly grappled with issues of gender and authority throughout her reign. In her early speeches to Parliament, she confronted a tangle of personal and political questions: Could a queen wield auth...
Turning the Century with Thomas Hardy
December 31, 1900, marked the eve of the twentieth century and also the date Thomas Hardy assigned to his poetic work 'The Darkling Thrush.' James Chandler, professor of English and the humanities, reads this poem in the context of its nineteenth-cent...
Toward Global Justice
One's life expectancy and access to freedoms (such as freedom of speech) can depend on the distance of a mile--if that mile includes a border dividing one nation from another. Martha Nussbaum, the Ernest Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law a...
Therapeutic Cloning: Hope or Hype?
The President's Council on Bioethics was established in 2001 to advise President George W. Bush on ethical issues in biomedical science and technology, such as human cloning and stem cell research. Dr. Janet D. Rowley, one of the 17 experts named to t...