Faculty
Current News
Professor David Oshinsky To Speak
Professor Speaks About His Just-released Book "Polio: An American Story"
Prof. David Oshinsky, the George Littlefield Professor of American History in the History Department, will be speaking at the Arboretum's Barnes and Noble Bookstore next Thursday, April 28, at 7 p.m. about his just-released book, Polio: An American Story (Oxford University Press). He will talk about the lessons to be gleaned from his research for the world today.
Prof. Agostino Ziino to Address Music Colloquium
Professor Agostino Ziino will give a lecture entitled "New sources of late fourteenth-century sacred and secular polyphony" for the Musicology colloquium series on November 9th at 5 pm in the School of Music, room MRH 2.604.
Columbia's Dr. Susan Crane speaks on 'Animals in Chaucer'
In Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer offers sharp and surprising insights about humanrelationships with other animals. While it might appear that a little dog, a cock, anda falcon simply help Chaucer to comment on human society, bonds of sympathy betweenhumans and animals reveal a deeper curiosity about animals themselves, and about whatkinds of relationships are possible with them.
Rather than seeing animals as sharply different from humans, in line with philosophicalthought of his time, Chaucer explores human-animal connections through the commonplaceexperience of feeling for animals. The Prioress weeps over her pet dogs, the Nun'sPriest laments the plight of a vain rooster, and in the Squire's Tale a princessrescues a falcon in distress. What does it mean to pity animals, or to feel compassionfor their suffering?
Susan Crane is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Her books Insular Romance (1986), Gender and Genre in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales(1994), and The Performance of Self (2002) discuss feudal thought, chivalry, magic,sexuality, honor, and faith in medieval literature and culture. A book in progresswill ask how medieval people understood animals and their place in creation.
TOM LEA ROOMS, HARRY RANSOM HUMANITIES RESEARCH CENTER 3.206
Friday February 16, 2007
2:45 for 3:00 p.m.
