Biological and behavioral description and analysis of human senses in ecologically relevant circumstances
Optatianus Porfyrius early in the 4th century used word, image, & scale of address in a carmen cancellatum (gridded poem) to bring enlightenment to Roman men. … Read the post carmen cancellatum of Optatianus Porfyrius: words weren’t enough
The travel account of Antoninus of Piacenza is factual in ways completely inconsistent with modern practices of distinguishing between fact and fiction. … Read the post Antoninus of Piacenza's strange sense in the Holy Land
Shipwreck beggars in ancient Rome used pictures. Pictures might have identified a beggar cross-linguistically as being particularly worthy of sympathy. … Read the post shipwreck beggars: popular pictorial communication in ancient Rome
The Smithsonian Museum of American History holds the piece of rock that Lewis Bradford at 4:15 pm on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 1830, chipped off the Plymouth Rock. … Read the post Smithsonian Museum: the matter of history
Communication between organisms is best understood as ongoing behavioral interactions of a particular formal type within a particular time frame. … Read the post system, not signals, for biological analysis of communication
Through its theatrically enacted bi-narrative, al-Farazdaq’s story of the girls overturns biographical reading of Imruʼ al-Qays’s Muʻallaqah. … Read the post al-Farazdaq realized Imruʼ al-Qays' poetic revelation
In al-Harizi’s Tahkemoni, a go-between promised Heber the Kenite a beautiful, young woman. She tricked him into marrying an ugly, old, poor woman. … Read the post Heber the Kenite sped to the marriage bed
Amid their learned classical references, cleric-scholars’ 12th-century Latin lyrics from the Carmina Burana show carnal love trumping reason. … Read the post cleric-scholars’ Latin lyrics long for bodily action
Christian icons were used spiritually before Islam, continued to be used through Byzantine iconoclasm, and were prevalent in the 9th-century Islamic world. … Read the post Christian icons in Islamic world during Byzantine iconoclasm
The Sackler Gallery’s fantastic Dunhuang cave visualization installation shows new media technologies that can greatly lever cultural and economic assets. … Read the post Dunhuang visualization shows media lever for cultural assets