Columbia University
The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America
Presents

ITALY AT COLUMBIA

A SERIES OF FREE PUBLIC LECTURES BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11 AT 1:10 P.M.
CHRISTIA MERCER
"GALILEO'S THE ASSAYER - THE FUNDAMENTAL REALITY OF (MUCH OF) MODERN
SCIENCE; THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES; THE
MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY"

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23 AT 4:10 P.M.
FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS
"TRIUMPHANT ART: THE MONUMENTS OF THE FLAVIANS"

WEDNESDAY MARCH 10 AT 9:10 A.M.
JAMES SHAPIRO
"ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA"

New York, NY - January 28, 2010 - Columbia University's Italian Academy
for Advanced Studies in America will host three public lectures by
prominent professors in the humanities. All three lectures will be held
in the Teatro of the Italian Academy, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue between
116th and 118th Streets. Admission is free. Each of the lectures is part
of a Columbia University course and will begin promptly at the noted time.

SPEAKER BIOS

Christia Mercer studied art history in New York and Rome, before going
to graduate school in philosophy. She has received the Latin
Certificate, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy (1980-81); a Fulbright
Scholarship, Leibniz Archive, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
(1984-85); Ph.D., Philosophy, Princeton University (1989); Humboldt
Fellowship, Leibniz Archive, ?Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
(1993-94); and the Sovern Fellowship, American Academy, Rome, Italy
(2009-10). She joined the Philosophy Department at Columbia in 1991, and
became Gustave M. Berne Professor in 2003. She is active in feminist
organizations on campus, and directed the Institute for Research on
Women and Gender, 2000-01. She gave the Ernst Cassirer Lectures at the
University of Hamburg in 2005, was visiting professor at Oslo, Norway,
Spring (1998), Centre Alexandre Koyré, École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales (2003, 2005, 2007), and the Seminar für
Geistesgeschichte und Philosophie der Renaissance, University of Munich,
Germany (2003). She won the 2008 Columbia College Great Teacher Award.

Francesco de Angelis is associate professor of Roman art and
archaeology at Columbia University. Before coming to New York, he has
worked at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome and at the
Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He has been the recipient of a
two-year fellowship from the Getty Research Institute and of a
Humboldt fellowship in Heidelberg. His research interests touch upon
various  aspects of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art and architecture,
among  which: the relation between visual evidence and written texts;
mythological images and their contexts; the role of monuments in the
transmission of cultural memory and identity; the architecture and
topography of justice in the Roman world; the reception of the
classical past in modern scholarship. His approach lays strong emphasis
on intercultural influences and on the value of cross-cultural
comparisons.

James Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia
University. He is the author of several influential and prize-winning
monographs, including, most recently, 1599: A Year in the Life of
William Shakespeare (2005), winner of the Theatre Book Prize as well as
the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, awarded to the best nonfiction book
published in the UK. He has recently completed one book, Contested Will:
The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy (forthcoming from Simon &
Schuster in April) and is currently at work on another, The Year of
Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Professor Shapiro reviews widely and works
regularly with theaters and acting companies in the US and Britain,
including the Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, and the Royal
Shakespeare Company.  He also serves on the Advisory Council for the
Authors Guild and as a member of the Board of Governors of the Folger
Shakespeare Library.

Admission to all lectures is free. For more information, please call
(212) 854-8942 or see our website: www.italianacademy.columbia.edu.
The Italian Academy's Teatro is located at 1161 Amsterdam Avenue
(between 116th and 118th Streets), New York, NY 10027.