November Symposium
Symposium Series (November 2-4, 2008)
"Water & Civilization: The Shaping of History and Culture"
Sunday November 2, 2008
4:00-5:30 pm Horner 102: Marc Van de Mieroop presents Water and the Mesopotamians
8:00-9:30 pm Horner 102: Anne Feldhaus presents Rivers as Women
9:30 pm Horner Lobby: Refreshments
Monday November 3, 2008
1:30 pm Campus Center Board Room: Round Table Discussion
4:00-5:30 pm Horner 102: Peter Aicher presents Roman Aqueducts: Technology and Daily Life
8:00-9:30 pm Horner 102: Arthur Demarest discusses Ancient Maya and the Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization
9:30 pm Horner Lobby: Refreshments
Tuesday November 4, 2008
10:00 am Campus Center Board Room: Round Table Discussion
12:00 pm Symposium ends.
Peter Aicher is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, where he frequently teaches courses on Homer and Virgil, in translation and in Greek and Latin. He combines these literary interests with a fascination with the city of Rome, which has resulted in several books and numerous articles and talks. He recently designed a course entitled "The City of Rome: From Romulus to Mussolini," which explores how an architectural language of power has evolved and persisted over the millennia.
He is author of the 1995 book, "Guide to the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome." He assisted NOVA in the making of the documentary, "Secrets of Lost Empires: Roman Bath," and has contributed a chapter on Roman aqueducts to a forthcoming UNESCO publication on water-supply around the globe and throughout history. Here and in other publications he emphasizes that the Roman technology of water-supply should be evaluated not simply by its engineering achievements, impressive as these may have been, but in its social and political context, in relation to Roman bathing culture, living patterns and patronage.
Arthur Demarest is an anthropologist and archaeologist, known for his studies of the Maya civilization. He studied Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology in Tulane University (La.), from which he graduated. In 1981, Demarest earned his doctorate from Harvard University (Mass.), which admitted him to its prestigious Society of Fellows club. Since 1984, he has taught at Vanderbilt University (Tenn.), where he holds the endowed chair of Ingram Professor of Anthropology and heads up the Department of Mesoamerican archaeology. Demarest has garnered various prizes, including the Orden Nacional from the Guatemalan president for his archaeological and educational work in Guatemala, and for his work for the contemporary Maya people. Demarest has worked in Mesoamerica for 25 years, leading archaeological excavations and expeditions. Considered one of the world's leading experts on the Olmec and Maya cultures, he also has interests in the Incas, Aztecs and anthropological theory. In 2005 he published "Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization."
Anne Feldhaus is Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. She works on the religious traditions of the Marathi-language region of western India and specializes in folk Hinduism, medieval Hinduism and religious geography. Feldhaus has been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, a Fulbright Scholar and a senior research fellow for the American Institute of Indian Studies. She is author of "Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion."
Following recent scholarship by arguing that the earthly pursuits are equally vital to an understanding of popular Hinduism, Feldhaus examines the role of these ideals in the religious meanings of rivers in Maharashtra, a large region of western India. Drawing both on written religious texts and on a wide range of oral, iconographic, and ritual materials gathered in the course of field work in India, she shows that these values, which are usually associated with women or represented by goddesses, are an important motif in popular religious practices and oral traditions associated with the rivers of Maharashtra. Feldhaus presents the many different ways in which rivers are imagined, enshrined, worshipped and feared.
Marc Van de Mieroop is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Columbia University. He is author of "A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC." In addition to his articles and translations, his books include, "Crafts in the Early Isin Period" (1987), "Sumerian Administrative Documents from the Reigns of Ishbi-Erra and Shu-ilishu" (1987), "Society and Enterprise in Old Babylonian Ur" (1992), "The Ancient Mesopotamian City" (1997 and 1999), and "Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History" (1999).
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