Return to the home page of the National Humanities Center Web site. Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1999, from the National Humanities Center
Contents

American Characters: Visual and Verbal Imagings over the Centuries
R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis




Poe's Raven: Influence, Alienation, and Art
Bertram Wyatt-Brown




The "Heavenly Length" of Schubert's Music
Scott Burnham




Icon or Altarpiece? Reflections on the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas
Jaroslav Folda




Moral Knowledge in the Modern University
W. Robert Connor




Contemporary Czech and Slovak Poster Design
Anna Dvorák




The Director's Desk
W. Robert Connor




This is an archived issue of Ideas.
Selections from
Volume 6, Number 1, 1999
American Characters: Visual and Verbal Imagings over the Centuries American Characters: Visual and Verbal Imagings over the Centuries
by R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis

A selection of portraits from the National Portrait Gallery's collection, matched by a verbal portrayal of the same figure. This article is adapted from a lecture given at the National Humanities Center in 1998.

Poe's Raven: Influence, Alienation, and Art
by Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Edgar Allan Poe's life provides one of the earliest, most salient, and most famous examples of the interconnection of creativity and melancholy in the literary culture of the South.
Poe's Raven:  Influence, Alienation, and Art

The Heavenly Length of Schubert's Music The "Heavenly Length" of Schubert's Music
by Scott Burnham

Beethoven can make us forget how long some of his music is, Schubert seems to want to remind us . . . telling us something by the way he makes us always aware of the sheer length of his music.

Icon or Altarpiece? Reflections on the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas
by Jaroslav Folda

The Kahn and Mellon Madonnas are two of the most famous and memorable early paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. But are they in fact Byzantine and are they indeed icons?
Icon or Altarpiece? Reflections on the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas


Moral Knowledge in the Modern University
Moral Knowledge in the Modern University
by W. Robert Connor with replies by
Andrew Delbanco and Elizabeth Kiss

One clause in the implicit social contract that binds the university to the society that sustains it is the obligation to advance, transmit, and invigorate moral knowledge. How can we fulfill our part of that implicit contract?

Contemporary Czech and Slovak Poster Design
by Anna Dvorák

Anna Dvorák's essay and the photos that accompany it are based on a lecture given by her at the National Humanities Center in September 1998 and a traveling exhibition co-organized by the Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, NC, and the Raleigh Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Contemporary Czech and Slovak Poster Design


The Director's Desk The Director's Desk
Ideas exists to thank our many donors for their support and to document some small portion of the work our scholars produce. We know that it is serving its purpose when our friends take up the discussions that begin in these pages.


  • Past Issues of Ideas appearing on the Web
  • Publications Menu
  • National Humanities Center Home Page

    Ideas is published by the
    National Humanities Center
    7 Alexander Drive, P.O. Box 12256
    Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709
    Editor: Joseph P. Parsons
    Web Design: Linda Morgan
    Copyright © 1999 by the National Humanities Center
    Comments to: lmorgan@ga.unc.edu
    Last modified: December 1999
    nationalhumanitiescenter.org