Arts and Culture

As a result of efforts by the University at Buffalo and a UB professor of classics and a leading archaeologist of the ancient Middle East, ancient Nineveh and Nimrud have been added to the 2002 World Monuments Fund Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites.

Have we developed the collective wisdom and conscience to deal with a world in which ubiquitous technological interactions are so intertwined that they cannot be untangled? Let's hope so, because that's what our future holds. "Digital Frontier: Buffalo Summit 2001," a major international conference to be held Nov. 2 and 3 at the University at Buffalo, will present observations and research on what digital technology has wrought by some of the most brilliant, pioneering thinkers in art, social science, applied science and engineering, medicine, philosophy and education.

The benefits to an educational institution of editorial involvement with a major scholarly journal are intangible and, in any case, hard to calculate. Nevertheless, David E. Johnson, assistant professor of comparative literature in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences, and his colleague Scott Michaelsen, associate professor of English at Michigan State University, have taken on the co-editorship and concurrent "reinvention" of just such a journal -- CR: The New Centennial Review.

Free lectures on hygienic cookery. Demonstrations in wireless telegraphy. Visits to heaven and hell for 25 cents, with a trip to the moon at half price. Moving pictures or ostrich-watching, a dime apiece. Just as the Pan-American Exposition brought its patrons daily programs to keep them current on activities and exhibits -- the aforementioned activities took place on Oct. 19, 1901 -- so, too, is the University at Buffalo, which has published a souvenir program marking "UB Pan-Am 2001 Days."

The past few decades seem to have marked a sea of change in public regard for female athletes. Does this signal a broader social definition of what it is to be female and feminine in American society? Emphatically no, says Susan Cahn, a distinguished and widely published scholar of sports history at the University at Buffalo.

Nearly 2,700 years after it was buried in the Mesopotamian earth, the crumbled, plundered, and now spectacular palace of the ancient Assyrian King Ashur-nasir-pal II will within the next year open its virtual doors to visitors from around the world. The visit will be made possible by archaeologists, engineers and computer scientists at the University at Buffalo who have been digging with digital tools to produce the next era of instructional devices.

A University at Buffalo sociologist has written a new book, "Life in the Air: Surviving the New Culture of Air Travel," which explores the myriad issues troubling airports and passengers today, from overcrowding and abusive passengers, to delays, cancellations and how travelers spend inordinately long periods of time while waiting to make their next connection.

A University at Buffalo administrator has recaptured the vibrancy and innovation of the Pan-Am Exposition in his book, "The Rainbow City: Celebrating Light, Color and Architecture at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo 1901."

"E-POETRY, 2001: An International Digital Poetry Festival," the first convocation of digital poets and artists gathered to focus on the emerging medium, will be held April 19-21 at the University at Buffalo.

The University at Buffalo today announced the appointment of Sandra Haller Olsen, Ph.D., to be director of the University Art Galleries and director of UB's new graduate program in museum studies in the Department of Art History, College of Arts and Sciences.