Tableau Spring

Tableau THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WINTER 2008 IN THIS ISSUE | ANCIENT PERSIA | VIRTUAL TOURISM | ADVANCING AMERICAN STUDIES Interpreting and recording the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets is one of many projects that University of Chicago Professor Matthew W. Stolper has been pursuing over the past twenty-odd years that he has served as their steward, and he had been proceeding at an intermittent pace. Today, patience is not an option. Stolper may be the last at the University of Chicago to steward and clear these opaque windows into the Empire of Cyrus the Great, Darius, and Xerxes. The remainder of his yield is imperiled by a lawsuit that could result either in their transfer into the hands of private buyers and sellers or their return to Iran. SEE PAGE 10 contents 1 LETTER FROM THE DEAN FEATURES ON CAMPUS 8 The Convergence of American Culture: 14 Curriculum Vitae 2 HERE & NOW The Karla Scherer Center for the Study Faculty Publications • Journey to 19th-Century Japan of American Culture • Urban Sonic with an Intellectual Twist By Stefanie Rothman White, 16 The Honor Roll Annual Gifts • Reconfiguring Multiculturalism and Director of Communications, the Division of the Humanities Jewish Literature 20 Palimpsest • A Nexus for Linguistics 10 Of Ancient Empires and Modern Litigation: Up and Down the Scale • The Virtual Tourist: Printing and Collecting A Lawsuit Jeopardizes the Persepolis By David M. Thompson, PhD 1997, Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae Associate Dean for Planning and Programs • Visual Signs: Technology in the Classroom By Daniel Parisi, Director of Grants and Fellowships, the Division of the Humanities • The Crown & The Fury 21 Happenings • Climate of Concern A Selection of Past, Present, and Future Events Tableau, Winter 2008, Volume 9, Number 2—Tableau is published biannually with Division of the Humanities funds for our alumni and friends. Editor: Stefanie Rothman White; To Contact Tableau: The University of Chicago, Division of the Humanities, 1115 East 58th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, [email protected]. FROM THE DEAN 1 primary responsibility in the coming months and years. I have been entrusted with the task of supporting the faculty and graduate students who are the foundation of this unparalleled institution. It is dear alumni in this rich environment, that fosters initiatives in and friends research and teaching, that I have been fortunate to achieve my own personal academic goals through the past 28 years. Most recently I sent to press the final volume of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, of which I have been Editor in Charge since 1996. A project such as this could not have I AM PLEASED AND HONORED TO ADDRESS YOU been accomplished anywhere other than the &for the first time from the pages of Tableau. The University of Chicago. This is a truly unique set- past few months have been exhilarating, assuming ting, where risk-taking is encouraged and where my new role as Dean of the Division of the Human- academic initiatives that stand on their own ities and setting the groundwork for collaborations intellectual merit are prized. I intend to ensure with colleagues and individuals who support the that other scholars have these same opportunities Division. well into the future. While I knew before coming to the position I am reminded on a daily basis how outstand- that the Division was comprised of internationally ing are our faculty and students. Recognizing and renowned departments and individual faculty celebrating their achievements is a goal of mine, members, I have been impressed by the commit- and here throughout the pages of Tableau are ment to the Humanities and the advancement of examples of what some of the highest caliber our academic endeavors that I find throughout thinkers, writers, and researchers today are doing the University community. I am most grateful to to inspire new generations of scholarship. Thank President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Thomas you for joining me in supporting them and helping F. Rosenbaum for their belief in and commitment the Division progress to a proud future. ■ to the value of humanistic inquiry and its essential role in the institution. Sincerely yours, I have had the good fortune to inherit a dedi- cated staff from former Dean Danielle Allen. The support from our alumni is also tremendous. I have had the pleasure of forging relationships with new Martha T. Roth friends whose generosity will further our efforts Dean of the Division of the Humanities to enhance cross-disciplinary collaboration, push intellectual boundaries, and set global research agendas. Please see the article about Karla Scherer in this issue for an example of how our mission is supported by our friends. Managing and enhancing the available resources to help the Division realize its potential will be my 2 HERE & NOW here &now EXHIBITIONS Journey to 19th-Century Japan By Elizabeth Begley, MA 2007 scroll depicts Shandao, a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk, later reconceptualized as an incarnation of the Amida Buddha, standing on a cloud as it transports him from China to Japan. Brilliant in his gold and platinum robe and a golden halo around his head, Shandao pro- Anounces the three syllables forming the name of the Amida Buddha. The Shandao print is just one of a collection of images, photographs, statues, maps, and talismans in “Objects of Inquiry: The Buckley Collection of Japanese Art” on view at the Smart Museum of Art this fall. Edmund Buckley traveled and taught in Japan from The collection was originally exhibited on campus 1886 to 1892 and compiled the collection while in 1894 in one of the first systematic displays of researching religious practice for his dissertation. Japanese religious objects in the West. After returning to the United States, the newborn The current exhibit, on display through December University of Chicago admitted 16, 2007, is the culmination of last spring’s “Objects Buckley as he pursued a PhD of Japanese Art” seminar taught by Ketelaar and in the history Hans Thomsen, chair of the East Asia Department, of religion, a Institute of Art History, University of Zurich (formerly field that hardly University of Chicago assistant professor of Art fix rag existed before that History). The objects in the show were selected and researched by the students in the seminar, with time. Buckley sought assistance from Richard Born, senior curator of the to understand the Smart Museum. The exhibition allows the Buckley “science of religion” by finding continuity among Collection to return to its roots as a teaching collec- diverse world religions throughout history. tion on Japan, and also to function as a bridge “Buckley was not unique in looking to other between museum exhibitions of the past and the societies as exemplars of ‘the primitive’ in an analy- present. As research and restoration continue, the sis of world religious and civilizational hierarchies,” objects will provide a richer picture not only of said James Ketelaar, professor of History and East Japan more than one hundred years ago, but also of Asian Languages and Civilizations, who co-curated Buckley himself, who, through his notes and journal, the exhibition. “So in this regard, his work is illus- will offer a glimpse into the history of Western trative and, given the quality of his collection and the scholars in Japan, and of the University of Chicago’s range of materials, we can even say exemplary, of beginnings as an institution. nineteenth-century scholastic method and content.” “This collection gives glimpses into the vibrant Buckley’s return to Chicago from Japan coincided nature of some aspects of worship practices found with the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and the Parlia- in Japan,” Ketelaar said. “Buckley (was able to) ment of the World’s Religions, a global symposium on catch the flavor of the time quite well. These few the various religions of the late nineteenth century. objects reveal pieces of this world to us even here Buckley immersed himself in the study of religion, in Hyde Park.” ■ was granted a PhD in 1895 and served as adjunct professor in the Department of Comparative Religions. Above: The scroll depicting “Honen’s Vision of Shandao” is the center- He wrote several articles and treatises on Japanese piece of the current exhibition of the Buckley Collection, which also religions and religious customs, all designed to edu- includes prints, religious objects, and other artifacts collected in Japan cate a Western public about an Eastern way of life. at the end of the nineteenth century. TABLEAU 3 CONFERENCE PHOTO JOHN WALDER Reconfiguring Multiculturalism and Jewish Literature By Jane Charney, graduate student, the Committee on International Relations or Jan Schwarz, America is not simply a multicultural country. It’s also multilingual — with more than 300 languages spoken Fhere daily. Schwarz, senior lecturer in Yiddish in the Department of Germanic Studies and the College, was inspired by The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature, compiled by Werner Sollors of Harvard University, to look at the multiplicity of languages spoken and written within the American VISITING ARTISTS Jewish community. Urban Sonic with an Intellectual Twist The “Multilingual Jewish Literature and Multi- cultural America” conference, held in early November, By Monica Westin, graduate student, Master of Arts Program in the Humanities explored American Jewish literary tradition in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and Ladino (a hybrid of hen Daniel Bernard Roumain Hebrew and Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews). and DJ Scientific take the The conference was sponsored by the University Mandel Hall stage on Feb- of Chicago — including the Franke Institute of the Wruary 1, their instruments — Humanities, Committee on Jewish Studies, and the the violin and a few LP turntables — will “sing, Department of Germanic Studies — as well as DePaul battle, and rhyme together, honoring not only University and the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.

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