Faculty

Exhibition Shows How Christians, Muslims, Jews Created Vibrant Society in Medieval Cairo

Photo credit: Anna Ressman
A new exhibition at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute Museum will offer a glimpse into everyday life in a lively, multicultural city in ancient Egypt. “A Cosmopolitan City: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Old Cairo” features many objects that have never been displayed in the museum before and shows how people of different faiths interacted to create a vibrant society. The exhibition is on view from Tuesday, Feb. 17 through Sept. 13.
March 10, 2015

Linguists Tackle Computational Analysis of Grammar

Children don’t have to be told that “cat” and “cats” are variants of the same word—they pick it up just by listening. To a computer, though, they’re as different as, well, cats and dogs. Yet it’s computers that are assumed to be superior in detecting patterns and rules, not 4-year olds. John Goldsmith and Jackson Lee are trying to solve that puzzle or at least provide the tools to do so.
March 3, 2015

Steven Rings on the Many Voices of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is the ultimate musical shape-shifter. In his five-decade career, he has refused to stay in the same place for long, moving fluidly between genres, voices and performance styles. To some, that elusive quality makes Dylan almost maddening. To others, it makes him fascinating. But to musicologist Steven Rings, it makes Dylan's work a perfect object of scholarly analysis.
February 3, 2015

Pages