Videos

The Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Since their discovery in the Qumran caves beginning in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the object of intense fascination and extreme controversy. In these excerpts from his book Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?: The Search for the Secret of Qumran...

Never Snitch: The Mythology of Harry Potter

The magical exploits of Harry Potter have captured the imagination of kids and adults on both sides of the Atlantic. But the themes that run through the highly original Harry Potter series are not necessarily new. Here, Wendy Doniger, a mythology scho...

Ordinary Evil

On some days it can seem that we find ourselves in a world marked by malignity with no motive--we learn that some of our fellow citizens conspire with others to murder ordinary people in their places of work, or creep around under cover of darkness pr...

Miles of Clay: Information Management in the Ancient Near Eastern Hittite Empire

The Hittite empire left behind neither pyramids nor mummies, but it did leave a paper trail in the form of thousands of cuneiform tablets. These clay tablets, once vital to the administration of the Hittite state, cover topics ranging from royal histo...

Mapping Africa: Problems of Regional Definition and Colonial/National Boundaries

What effect do maps have on the world they try to represent? In the case of Africa, the mapping and remapping of the continent under colonial rule continues to negatively affect the process of forming meaningful, modern boundaries. In an essay adapted...

Lost Tongues and the Politics of Language Endangerment

By some estimates, thousands of the world's 6,700 languages will be lost before the turn of the next century. What are the factors that drive a language to the brink of extinction, and what allows others to prosper--or simply to survive? Salikoko Mufw...

Lost Egypt: Photography and the Early Documentation of Egyptian Monument

In 1992, the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago published a series of limited edition photographs entitled Lost Egypt. The images reproduced in these portfolios are from the Survey's unique archive of over 800 lar...

The Lessons of Enron

Was energy giant Enron guilty of criminal activity or was it simply a business that failed? What changes will the Enron debacle, and the subsequent indictment of accounting firm Arthur Andersen, have on the rules that govern corporate auditing? And wh...

The Legitimacy of Military Tribunals

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US government announced its intention to establish military tribunals to try non-US citizens suspected of terrorist activity. In a panel discussion at The University of Chicago Law School, leading schol...

'I Have Given You my Advice': Educational Principles in the Hittite Empire

Whatever the topic was--raising children, training soldiers, pouring wine for the king's guests--the Hittites had an anecdote for it. The stories that survive from this ancient empire are often entertaining, but their broader purpose was instructive: t...