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25th Anniversary Season |
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Commemorating the 400th anniversary of modern astronomy and Galileo’s first use of the telescope in 1609. For centuries, religious belief and philosophical reasoning had placed man and his earthly home at the center of the universe. Changing that deep-seated and psychologically compelling conviction took courage, persistence, and a dedication to new methods of scientific observation and measurement on the part of three provincial scholars from Toruń in Poland, Pisa in Italy, and Weil der Stadt in Germany. It also took more than 150 years of controversy and confrontation spanning most of the 16th and 17th centuries, from Copernicus’ life work first published as De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543 to Newton’s Principia in 1687. Those years of controversy succeeded beyond belief, leading to today's astronomical shifts in understanding an expanding universe that may contain millions of life-supporting planets in our galaxy alone. Moderator: Alexander Zwissler Executive Director, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland |
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Alexander conquered the vast Persian Empire and founded Alexandria before dying in his 33rd year, in 323 BCE. In the aftermath, Greek literature, learning, and art intermingled with Egyptian, Iranian, Babylonian, and Hebrew cultures. Nowhere did this convergence of cultures emerge more dramatically than in Alexandria, which became the royal seat of Hellenistic Egypt. Its Great Library and Museum and its Lighthouse— one of the ancient wonders of the world—became magnets for travelers from the Mediterranean and beyond. Though Alexandria’s original Library was destroyed long ago, another has risen from its ashes, and the luster of Hellenistic Civilization that flourished for three centuries after Alexander still endures. Moderator: William S. Greenwalt (Professor of Classics, Director of University Honors, Director of Lead Scholars, and Director of Fellowships, Santa Clara University) |
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Out of a small but fiercely competitive city of some 60,000 inhabitants there erupted, between the 14th and 17th centuries, a torrent of artistic and intellectual creativity that transformed western culture. The wealth of the city, and especially of its rulers, the Medici, whose patronage and influence embraced much of Italy and beyond, made possible an outburst of artistic and intellectual innovations that had consequences throughout Europe. Home to Dante, Toscanelli (the geographer who inspired Columbus), Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo, Florence in these years was at the cutting edge of changes that eventually were to shape the modern world. Moderator: Theodore Rabb, PhD(History), Emeritus, Princeton University |
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| > download the 25th Anniversary Season brochure |
