Science, Culture, and the Human after World War II

Our work on this topic seeks to bridge the divide between medieval and early modern studies by taking a long view of three questions surrounding particular uses of vernacular languages and broader processes of vernacularization in this period: How did changes in technologies of communication, such as the rise of letterpress printing, intersect with the uses of vernacular languages? How were the structures of "vernacular theology" transfigured during the period leading up to and following the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation?

From the heads and tails of individual notes to the foreheads and feet of song stanzas, medieval musical writings are replete with body parts. Sometimes the terms are used by convention, or in the service of simple mnemonics. But in other cases, the reasons for acts of musical anthropomorphization are less clear. Tracing the rhetoric of musical animation from the treatises into the realm of musica practica can give us fresh insight into some of the best-known songs of the later middle ages.

Shakespeare's plays Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night both contain men named Antonio who speak of their love for another male character. Both Antonios remain single at the ends of their plays while both of the men they love marry women. Recent critics often see homosexual desire in the Antonios, and productions today often emphasize their exclusion from the comic community.

As a relatively new phenomenon in the phonology of Scottish English, TH-fronting has surprised sociolinguists by its rapid spread in the urban heartlands of Scotland. While attempts have been made to understand and model the influence of lexical effects, media effects and frequency effects, far less understood is the role of social identity.

Jon McCourt has been a community Peace Activist and a member of the Peace and Reconciliation Group in the City of Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland for over 30 years. As a young man he went on the first Civil Rights March in Derry in October 1968. He has been actively engaged in almost every aspect of the conflict that arose as the result of that march. He was involved in the events that have come to be known as Bloody Sunday when British soldiers clashed with civil rights protestors January 30, 1972.

Domietta Torlasco works at the intersection of film theory and practice and is currently an Associate Professor
of French, Italian, and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University, where she is also affiliated with the
Screen Cultures Program. She is the author of The Time of the Crime: Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis, Italian
Film (Stanford University Press, 2008) and the digital film Antigone’s Noir (2008-09). Her second book, The
Heretical Archive: Digital Memory at the End of Film is forthcoming with University of Minnesota Press in
2013.

Patricia Guy, a Diplomat in Residence for the State Department, will visit the University of Pittsburgh to talk about the State Department’s internship program, and will provide information and answer questions about careers and job possibilities with the Department of state.

Abstract:

Why do governments provide bilateral bailouts to countries that experience
financial crises above and beyond what the IMF provides? We argue that
governments face a trade off. On one hand, they have incentives to rescue a crisis
country because they want to prevent the spread of the crisis to their own country.
On the other hand, governments experience pressures from domestic constituents
who are oftentimes opposed to financial rescues. Politicians aim to balance these
countervailing pressures. Whereas they are more likely to provide financial support

On British children's literature.

With responses by Karl Schafer (Philosophy) and Stuart Hammond (Psychology).

Faculty and graduate students in Pitt Humanities departments can access readings for colloquia by logging in to , clicking on the tab “My Resources,” clicking on “Humanities Center,” and then clicking on “Colloquium Series” where there is a link to the pdf files. Anyone else wishing to access the readings may request the reading at humctr@pitt.edu.