Religion in the Lives of the Ancient Egyptians
The principles behind ancient Egyptian religion, cosmologies and gods were manifested in symbols and metaphors that were drawn largely from the world around them. Inextricably linked with all aspects of daily life, religion explained the cycles of nat...
The Prophetic Art of Prognosis
With medical technology extending life and expanding treatment options, the physician's ability to provide a prognosis for a patient is every bit as important as the diagnosis. The significance of prognosis and whether and how to deliver it are issues...
The Power of Tiananmen: Intellectual Activity and the Student Movement
In the spring of 1989 over 100,000 students in Beijing initiated the largest student revolt in human history. Television screens across the world filled with searing images from Tiananmen Square of protesters thronging the streets, massive hunger stri...
The Persistent Puppet: Pinocchio's Heirs in Contemporary Fiction and Film
Carlo Lorenzini (pen name Collodi) created the puppet who longed to be a boy more than a century ago, yet Pinocchio has lived on, both in popular culture and in literary and filmic versions of the tale. One of the most read books in the world, 'The Ad...
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...