Columbia Ink
Jan. 30, 2013
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The Testament of Mary
BY COLM TÓIBÍNScribner |
Tóibín, the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities, has written a story of Mary in the years after the crucifixion. An older woman now, she is still trying to make sense of the events that have become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity. Tóibín creates a portrait of a classic tragic heroine who bears very little resemblance to the loving, obedient mother of Christ that we know.
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At the Violet Hour: Modernism and Violence in England and Ireland BY SARAH COLE Oxford University Press |
Cole, associate professor of English and comparative literature, shows how modernism emerged as an imaginative response to the devastating events that defined the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in England and Ireland, including the chaos of anarchist bombings, World War I, the Irish uprising and the Spanish Civil War. In an interdisciplinary study, she incorporates historical detail, fiction, poetry, journalism, photographs, and other cultural materials to explore the strange intimacy between modernist aesthetics and violence to create a framework for refiguring the relationship between aesthetics and violence. |
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The Life Within: Local Indigenous Society in Mexico's Toluca Valley, 1650-1800 BY CATERINA PIZZIGONI Stanford University Press |
A social and cultural history of the indigenous people of a region of central Mexico, The Life Within tells the story of the Toluca Valley in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Pizzigoni, associate professor of history, shows that world from the level of the household—buildings, lots, household saints—to the greater community. She provides a comprehensive picture of the society, exploring the categories by which people are identified and their interactions and activities. |
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The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter BY DEBORAH COEN University of Chicago Press |
During the 19th century, a scientific description of an earthquake was built of stories from as many people in as possible. In her new book, Coen, an assistant professor of history at Barnard College, tells the history of this citizen science, which was abandoned with the introduction of the Richter Scale in the 1930s, only to be revived it in the 21st century. |
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Multimedia
| Artworks by contemporary Cambodian artists, including survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide, are on display at Columbia’s Maison Française and Italian Academy. |
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