News Archive
Within the Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s trove of publishing industry records is a single index card that notes the delivery of a manuscript by an unpublished author titled Go Set a Watchman. It is the only known record of the first draft of a novel that would become the 1960 blockbuster To Kill A Mockingbird.
Thomas Merton (CC’38, MA’39) was a monk, mystic, best-selling author, poet, civil rights activist and photographer. These facets of his life and more are on display at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in a show that celebrates the centennial of his birth and showcases Columbia’s collection of his papers and photographs.
Columbia awarded its first Global Freedom of Expression Prizes to courts in Turkey and Zimbabwe and to a U.K.-based legal services organization in recognition of their contributions to free speech and a free press.
Research shows that black-legged ticks are rapidly growing in number, expanding geographically and carrying pathogens that can lead to ailments like Lyme disease and babesiosis into places where they were relatively unknown.
David Freedberg, the Pierre Matisse professor of art history and director of the Italian Academy, was named director of the Warburg Institute of the University of London, beginning in July.
Kelley Remole has been interested in science since she was a child. In high school, she was drawn to astronomy and neuroscience, which she says involve “the biggest questions in science, what is our place in the universe and what makes us who we are.”
Columbia University’s inaugural Global Freedom of Expression Prizes were awarded on March 11 to the Constitutional Court of Turkey, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe and the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI).
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger reflects on the inaugural Global Freedom of Expression Prizes, which recognize the best judicial decisions and legal representation around the world in advancing international legal norms and principles of freedom of expression.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, Ken Burns and Barak Goodman were at Columbia on March 24 when the University hosted a media briefing on the future of cancer research. Speakers and panelists included Katie Couric, a co-founder of Stand Up to Cancer, and Columbia researchers Kenneth Forde, Stephen Emerson and Thomas Maniatis.
Stathis Gourgouris, a professor of classics, English and comparative literature who directs the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, believes that antiquity has relevance to contemporary life.
Liza Knapp (GSAS’85), an associate professor of Slavic languages, focuses her teaching and research on 19th century Russian literature, in particular the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. A native New Yorker, she began studying Russian as a teenager, inspired by her reading of the literature in translation.
Asked what makes a good teacher or good student, Molly Murray (CC’94) responds simply, “Curiosity … an openness to new ideas and a willingness to follow them where they lead, into the library or out of it.”
Patricia Dailey, an associate professor of English and comparative literature, specializes in medieval literature and critical theory, adapting her teaching style to individual classes.
As an undergraduate at Purdue University, Brad Garton majored in pharmacy because “growing up in the Midwest, being a musician wasn’t a legitimate job.”
Physics professor Brian Cole is renowned for Accelerated Physics, his two-semester course for first-year students that covers the usual introductory physics sequence, plus relativity, waves and introductory quantum mechanics. “An honors physics course on steroids,” he calls it.