Merchants of Knowledge in the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic

Gilman 300 Lecture by Robert Morrison (Bowdoin College). This talk is a discussion of a network of Jewish merchant-scholars who mediate a remarkable episode of intellectual exchange among scholars in the Ottoman Empire, Crete, and the Veneto between 1450 and 1550. Robert Morrison is George Lincoln Skolfield, Jr. Professor of Religion and Middle Eastern and […]

Thomas Browne and the Mystery of Number

Gilman 479 Marked by the ‘mathematization’ of scientific knowledge, seventeenth-century European intellectual culture is also punctuated by profound skepticism about the stability, reliability, or calculability of numbers. Focusing on the natural philosopher and lay theologian Thomas Browne, who fluctuates puzzlingly between fascination and contempt for arithmology and numerology, this lecture will explore the seventeenth century’s […]

Botticelli’s Secret

Gilman 50 Synopsis: Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, an Italian painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, […]

Environmental Humanities Research Initiative Autumn Panel

Gilman 108

Visualizing Human and Ecological Loss in Latin America (Gisela Heffes, Modern Languages and Literatures) Beeing and Time: Toward a Literary Entomology (Christiane Frey, Modern Languages and Literatures) Modified: Colonial Limits and Plant Life Relations in Transgenics Research (Nicole Labruto, Program in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities; Anthropology) Organized and Moderated by: Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei, Modern Languages […]

A Roudtable Discussion of Voidopolis

A roundtable discussion of Voidopolis with Charlotte Kent (Art History, Montclair State University), Alexey Yurenuv (International Center of Photography, NYC), and Arielle Saiber (Italian Studies, JHU) on April 10th at 6pm in Maryland Hall 110.

Mutamenti Graduate Symposium: Alien Perspectives

The Italian program at Johns Hopkins and the Department of Italian Studies at Yale are pleased to present the third edition of the Mutamenti graduate symposium to be held in person on October 25-26, 2024 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The word “alien” conjures images of little green bipeds, flying saucers, and lunar hoaxes; […]