by Sam Harrelson
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Back To My Favorite Bag
I bought this bag in an Army/Navy store in Columbia, SC back in the Fall of 2004. It has gone through many iterations over these last five years, but I’m glad to have it over my shoulder again.
Hello, old friend.
Click below for notes on all the contents.
links for 2009-11-28
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Wow, can't wait to dig through these podcasts.
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I love that Newton v Einstein v Quantum Mechanics makes for such interesting alliances.
How To Think About Science
Well I know what I’ll be listening to during my 3 hour round trip to-and-from school each day this week…
CBC Radio | Ideas | Features: “If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it?
Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny.
This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows. David Cayley talks to some of the leading lights of this new field of study.”
This is the type of information I dreamed about as an 8th grader first getting exposed to the internet in 1992.
links for 2009-11-27
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On the importance of Science as a "core" subject in our educational system…
Is Science a "Core" Subject?
Last week, a colleague remarked that my 8th grade Physical Science course wasn’t part of our school’s “core” curriculum because it was not English, History or Math (which I guess are the now accepted core-subjects??).
I was shocked by the sentiment (and insulted that someone would think you could study Science in the absence of History, Math, Art, Literature or any variety of other artificially separated subjects).
Evidently, that sentiment is part of a larger and more disturbing trend in the U.S. that I hadn’t observed because of my naive assumption that the principles of science (in general) are important to parents, administrators and fellow teachers…
Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look to the Future … and I’m Troubled | Dr. Jeff’s Blog on the Universe: “More generally, will we be able to compete in the global 21st century high technology marketplace? Are we taking science and technology education seriously? Are PARENTS taking science and technology education seriously? Do Americans know this is of strategic national importance? And do Americans know that our national prowess in science and technology is about the future of our children, our standard of living, and the American dream? We are living through changes forced by globalization and the marketplace. Are jobs lost ever coming back? Are we training Americans—all Americans—in our grade K-12 system and in our colleges and universities, in the skills required by 21st century jobs?”
I don’t advocate science literacy because of the inherent national interests only. Rather, knowing the scientific method helps a young person better develop critical thinking skills that will aid them throughout life and career.
So here’s to hoping that the American view of science changes (and soon)…
Fruits of My First Labor
Since graduating from Yale with my Masters Degree in Religion and Art in 2002, I’ve thought and written a great deal about Dura Europos.
From Wikipedia:
Dura-Europos (“Fort Europos”) [4] was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment ninety meters above the right bank of the Euphrates river.
It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today’s Syria.
Dura-Europos is extremely important for archaeological reasons. As it was abandoned after its conquest in 256–7, nothing was built over it and no later building programs obscured the architectonic features of the ancient city. Its location on the edge of empires meant for a co-mingling of cultural traditions, much of which was preserved under the city’s ruins. Some remarkable finds have been brought to light, including numerous temples, wall decorations, inscriptions, military equipment, tombs, and even dramatic evidence of the siege that brought about the city’s end.
I had the occasional odd job in high school and college, but my first “real” job was at the Yale University Art Gallery where I was hired to help digitize the University’s (mostly basement contained) collection of monuments, beads, frescos, reliefs, statues and paintings from Dura Europos.
I was given a digital camera (the first time I had used one of those), an all access pass to the incredible basement of the Gallery (think Indiana Jones) and a few hours a day to systematically take pictures, scan slides and immerse myself in this sadly all-but forgotten ancient outpost.
Yale has approximately 85,000 objects in its Dura Europos collection, and we did scan, shoot and categorize a number of those items over the course of the year when I worked on the project. I can’t tell you how many accession numbers I arranged on the little blackboard indicating the date an object was re-discovered and in what order. I still have nightmares about those little placard numbers.
However, it was an incredible experience.
I eventually moved on within the Gallery to work with the amazing Prof Susan Matheson who was Head Curator and Curator of Ancient Art and even got to publish my first book there on Yale’s colleciton of Assyrian Art.
So, it’s great to see the Yale Dura Europos collection (well 12,000 parts of it) now online in a searchable database.
I felt as if I was leaving Dura Europos behind when I graduated with my Masters in 2002. However, it’s glad to see such an early, careful and systematic attempt at digitizing information come to fruition.
I’m hopeful this will allow future scholars and enthusiasts to discover the same quarky uniqueness of Dura Europos that has drawn me, like a magnet, to that small city above the Euphrates.