Columbia University The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America Presents
ITALY AT COLUMBIA
A SERIES OF FREE PUBLIC LECTURES BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11 AT 1:10 P.M. CHRISTIA MERCER "Galileo's 'The Assayer' - The Fundamental Reality of (Much of) Modern Science; The Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Qualities; The Mechanical Philosophy"
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23 AT 4:10 P.M. FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS "Triumphant Arts: The Monuments of the Flavians"
WEDNESDAY MARCH 10 AT 9:10 A.M. JAMES SHAPIRO "Antony and Cleopatra"
Christia Mercer studied art history in New York and Rome, before going to graduate school in philosophy. She has received the Latin Certificate, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy (1980-81); a Fulbright Scholarship, Leibniz Archive, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany (1984-85); Ph.D., Philosophy, Princeton University (1989); Humboldt Fellowship, Leibniz Archive, ?Universität Münster, Münster, Germany (1993-94); and the Sovern Fellowship, American Academy, Rome, Italy (2009-10). She joined the Philosophy Department at Columbia in 1991, and became Gustave M. Berne Professor in 2003. She is active in feminist organizations on campus, and directed the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, 2000-01. She gave the Ernst Cassirer Lectures at the University of Hamburg in 2005, was visiting professor at Oslo, Norway, Spring (1998), Centre Alexandre Koyré, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (2003, 2005, 2007), and the Seminar für Geistesgeschichte und Philosophie der Renaissance, University of Munich, Germany (2003). She won the 2008 Columbia College Great Teacher Award.
Francesco de Angelis is associate professor of Roman art and archaeology at Columbia University. Before coming to New York, he worked at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He was the recipient of a two-year fellowship from the Getty Research Institute and of a Humboldt fellowship in Heidelberg. His research interests touch upon various aspects of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art and architecture, including: the relation between visual evidence and written texts; mythological images and their contexts; the role of monuments in the transmission of cultural memory and identity; the architecture and topography of justice in the Roman world; and the reception of the classical past in modern scholarship. His approach puts strong emphasis on intercultural influences and on the value of cross-cultural comparisons.
James Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University. He is the author of several influential and prize-winning monographs, including, most recently, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005), winner of the Theatre Book Prize as well as the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, awarded to the best nonfiction book published in the UK. He has recently completed one book, Contested Will: The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy (forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in April) and is currently at work on another, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Professor Shapiro reviews widely and works regularly with theaters and acting companies in the US and Britain, including the Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also serves on the Advisory Council for the Authors Guild and as a member of the Board of Governors of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Admission to all lectures is free. For more information, please call (212) 854-8942 or see our website: www.italianacademy.columbia.edu. The Italian Academy's Teatro is located at 1161 Amsterdam Avenue (between 116th and 118th Streets), New York, NY 10027.