Past Events

Known for his studies of class and urban society, Richard Sennett is Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Bemis Adjunct Professor of Sociology at MIT, and Professor of the Humanities at New York University.

The Manimekalai is a Tamil Buddhist text which tells the story of the renunciation of Manimekalai, the daughter of a courtesan. In this talk, Dr. Vijayalakshmy discusses the relationship between this text and the earlier Pali poems of the Therigatha, arguing that while the Manimekalai reveals familiarity with—and in fact explicitly draws from—the Therigatha in its characterization of the heroine, the Tamil epic differs in ways peculiar to the cultural and social milieu of Tamil country.

The Townsend Center reinstitutes the Speculative Lunch series in 2009-2010 with a focus on Digital Technology in Humanities Scholarship. This is an informal brown bag lunch series with beverages provided by the Townsend Center.

Traveling to the world’s most inhospitable environment, director Werner Herzog documents the bizarre community of eccentric scientists who live and work on the South Pole. Nominated for an Academy Award, the film captures the icy, fiery depths these people travel—beneath glaciers and inside volcanoes—to study a breathtaking landscape that is quickly melting around them.

Dr. Vijayalakshmy Rangarajan is Associate Professor Emeritus at the International Institute of Tamil Studies in Chennai, India. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 1972 for a study on “the interaction between Tamil and Indo Aryan in the Civakacintamani.” Dr. Rangarajan specializes in Comparative Indian Literature, Women’s Studies and Jaina and Buddhist studies.

The second in a series of three lectures by renowned art historian, author, and professor T. J. Clark, extracted from a series of six lectures he delivered as the Mellon Lectures in Fine Art last spring at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The Friends of the Bancroft Library and the Townsend Center present a special panel presentation in conjunction with Bancroft Library's Darwin and the Evolution of a Theory (on display August 13 - December 22, 2009 in the Bancroft Library Gallery, Room 278).

The second in a series of three lectures by renowned art historian, author, and professor T. J. Clark, extracted from a series of six lectures he delivered as the Mellon Lectures in Fine Art last spring at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The first in a series of three lectures by renowned art historian, author, and professor T. J. Clark, extracted from a series of six lectures he delivered as the Mellon Lectures in Fine Art last spring at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

In this participatory dialogue, Thomas Keenan, Trevor Paglen, and Edwin Okong’o will trace the impact of imagery and media on public events and pose questions for small group discussions among those in attendance.