Humanities and Arts
U-M researchers part of team that discovered rare gold coin in Israel
Sharon Herbert and her team were wrapping up their dig at the Tel Kedesh site in Israel, sweeping the site in the 140-degree heat, when a student showed University of Michigan doctoral instructor Lisa Cakmak what he first thought was a gold candy wrapper. The candy wrapper turned out to be what researchers believe is the heaviest and most valuable gold coin ever found in Israel, according to Herbert, director of the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archeology and co-director of the dig. [Read more...]
Janko named 2011 Russel Lecturer
Richard Janko, one of the most influential living scholars of ancient Greek literature and culture, has been selected as the Henry Russel Lecturer for 2011 — one of the university’s highest honors for a senior member of its active faculty. Janko joined U-M in 2002 as the Gerald F. Else Collegiate Professor of Classical Studies and served as chair of the Department of Classical Studies for five years. [Read more...]
U-M video series wins Emmy Award
The School of Art & Design's ongoing video series, PLAY, received an Emmy Award as a top program in the arts and entertainment category. The award from the Michigan Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was presented at the annual Emmy Awards ceremony this month. The PLAY series features short pieces by and about the School of Art & Design community. "Our unique paired websites—one primarily for administrative and news purposes, the other (PLAY) for showcasing the creative work of the A&D community—allows us to effectively transmit to the public the dynamic and diverse character of the school and enter successfully into the media culture represented by the Emmys," said Bryan Rogers, dean of U-M School of Art & Design.
Rosa appointed new director of U-M Museum of Art
Joseph Rosa, the Art Institute of Chicago's chief curator of architecture and design, will become the new director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the university has announced today. The appointment, pending approval by the U-M Board of Regents, is effective July 1, 2010. "We are so pleased that Joe Rosa has agreed to lead the University of Michigan Museum of Art at this particularly auspicious and exciting moment in its history," said U-M President Mary Sue Coleman. "A year after its landmark expansion and restoration reopened to the public, UMMA has more than lived up to its promise of becoming a dynamic meeting place for the arts, offering a diverse range of lively exhibitions, performances, and programs and boasting record attendance. [Read more...]
Synonyms – in the age of the internet
"In English, it is often said, there are no synonyms, and it's true," writes Richard Bailey in the March 2010 issue of Michigan Today. "While we may be able to substitute one word for another without changing the meaning much, it is not hard to construct contexts in which one word fits fine and the other clashes. In discussions of Ovid's tale of Acteon and Diana (as told by Chaucer and painted by Titian) the words 'naked' and 'nude' seem nearly interchangeable. Yet 'the naked truth' is quite a different thing from 'the nude truth,' and it seems silly to say 'nude as a jaybird.' Teasing out the differences between synonyms is fascinating to the word-curious, and whole books have been devoted to doing so." [Read more...]
NCRC Update: New research model, call for proposals announced
Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, executive vice president for medical affairs, today announced a new research model for the North Campus Research Complex and called for proposals by faculty teams to form research clusters on the former Pfizer campus. In an e-mail to the U-M community, Pescovitz also said the NCRC will house research on health services, biointerfaces and imaging. [Read more...]
Rethinking the role of American orchestras
In January, 2010, a landmark conference concerning the American orchestra was held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, examining the wide-reaching cultural impact that the orchestra has had in America, and exploring how orchestras and academia might partner effectively to extend this impact. Several of the conference participants were interviewed. [Video...]
UMMA hosting three exhibits featuring works from its collection
The U-M Museum of Art has an outstanding collection of the graphic work of early 20th-century art, particularly the work of the German Expressionists. In "The Eye of the Beholder: European Drawings and Prints from the Pulgram-McSparran Collection," drawings and prints are displayed by artists such as George Grosz, Ernst Kirchner, and Oskar Kokoschka. It runs through March 14, 2010.
The exhibition, "Tradition Transformed: Chang Ku-nien, Master Painter of the 20th Century," explores the development of Ku-nien (1906–1987) throughout his life. He was a versatile and proficient practitioner of the ancient tradition of Chinese painting. The exhibition continues until April 18, 2010.
"An Economy of Means: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection," presents works drawn from the Vogels’ recent gift of fifty works to the Museum of Art. The Vogels began collecting in the early 1960s, with a focus on minimal and conceptual art, though they also embraced a wide range of post-minimal practices as well as new figurative directions that emerged in the 1980s. The exhibition runs until May 2, 2010.
Big year for U-M in tough times: $1 billion in research, new inventions, NCRC
In the midst of the most severe recession since the Great Depression, research spending at the University of Michigan topped $1 billion last year, researchers were awarded more than $218 million in federal stimulus grants and faculty members disclosed a record 350 inventions. The university purchased the former Pfizer pharmaceutical research facility, a 30-building complex adjacent to the university's current North Campus, in June 2009, and renamed it the North Campus Research Complex. These were some of the highlights in U-M Vice President for Research Stephen Forrest's annual report to the Board of Regents at its meeting Thursday, Jan. 21. [Read more...]