Caroline Arscott, a professor of 19th century art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, will deliver 鈥淐olor as Lure and Provocation: William Morris鈥 Tapestry, 鈥楾he Woodpecker,鈥 1885鈥 as the 2013 Allen R. Hite Lecture. 聽The talk is Monday, Feb. 11, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library.
Arscott wrote 鈥淲illiam Morris and Edward Burne-Jones: Interlacings.鈥 She will talk about Morris鈥 tapestry 鈥淭he Woodpecker鈥 (1885) in which the bird refers to the story of Picus from Ovid鈥檚 鈥淢etamorphoses.鈥 Within that context, Arscott also will discuss the woodpecker鈥檚 significance in Charles Darwin鈥檚 theory of evolution and other Victorian theories of evolution and the evolutionary emergence of consciousness.
Earlier in the day, Arscott and Jongwoo Jeremy Kim, assistant professor of modern art at the Hite Art Institute, will have a public conversation on modern art, Victorian science and the body. It will be at 10 a.m. in Chao Auditorium.
Hazel Dodge, the Louis Claude Purser associate professor in classical archaeology at Trinity College Dublin, will give the talk, 鈥淪ymbols of Victory and Colors of Power: Egyptian Stones for the City of Rome,鈥 Thursday, Feb. 14 as the 2013 Frederic Lindley Morgan Lecture. It starts at 6 p.m. in Chao Auditorium.
Dodge will discuss obelisks quarried in Egypt and erected in Rome as both victory monuments and symbols of imperial ideology, as well as gray granite and purple porphyry Romans imported from two different Egyptian quarries. She will examine evidence from the Egyptian quarries, the effects of the stone on the city of Rome and the legacy of the practice in more recent times.
Admission to the talks is free and open to the public.