Has the Renaissance warped our view of the Middle Ages?
The picture of the Middle Ages as “awful, smelly, stinky, [and] dangerous” is not accurate, says medievalist and University of Pennsylvania professor David Wallace, this year’s Ferrari Humanities Symposia visiting scholar.
Celebrating 60 years of ‘Seward’s Folly’
The Alaskan flag, with its simple Big Dipper and North star design, was the winning entry submitted by a 13-year-old Aleut boy, John Bell Benson, for a competition by the Alaska Department of the American Legion. Chosen in 1927, this particular example is now part of the University’s William Henry Seward Papers.
The student as author
Vlad Cazacu ’20 knew he wanted to make the most of his time at Rochester, but was unsure how. Now as the founder of Rochester Creators, he is helping himself and his fellow students gain confidence and credibility by writing and publishing books.
Should higher education go digital?
From smartphones and social media to augmented spaces and virtual reality —three Rochester professors discuss the role digital technologies play in our learning.
How to fail properly and often
Julia Maddox, director of the University’s Barbara J. Burger iZone in Rush Rhees Library, talks about creating a safe space for students to try things, and fail, while reducing the pressure to have to succeed all the time.
Turning the gears of an early modern search engine
A collaboration between librarians and engineering students, the book wheel in Rossell Hope Robbins Library is a recreation of a 16th-century design, solving the problem of needing access to multiple books at the same time.
‘Drifting open eyed into insanity’
Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation has acquired a remarkable collection of 52 personal letters from author and early feminist reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who minces no words when it comes to motherhood, marriage, and depression.
Waited 100 years for it? Listen here to the rediscovered Frederick Douglass ‘Farewell’ song
The rare song, scored for voice and piano, probably hasn’t been performed in more than a hundred years, with only two known copies of the sheet music in the world. The only known copy in America now resides at the University of Rochester.
‘Lewis Henry Morgan at 200’ reintroduces a landmark scholar
A new digital project and exhibitions on and off campus mark the bicentennial year of one of the founders of social and cultural anthropology.
Tribute to Frederick Douglass in word and song
On December 3, 1847, the first issue of the North Star newspaper was published in the city of Rochester. One hundred and seventy one years later, the city again celebrated abolitionist, activist, author, and orator Frederick Douglass in an evening of words and song at Rochester’s Hochstein Hall. The Prophet of Freedom event include a performance by Eastman School of Music student Jonathan Rhodes ’20 of a song written for Douglass in 1847 that had not been performed in 100 years.