Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

How do walls—man-made and otherwise—define global-cultural limits? How do the physical/material characteristics of walls bear on/inform/reflect/etc. their religious, political, social, and economic meanings, and vice versa? How do walls mark cultural relations of infinity and finite-ness, abundance and lack, presence and absence, etc.? What kinds of cultural dynamics are generated in/by walls? What kinds of cultural (self-)reflections might be delimited, inscribed, or circumscribed in/by walls?

Join us to hear Professor David Frye of Eastern Connecticut State University, discuss his book Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick and give a on lecture on the lasting physical and cultural effects of ancient wall building.

David Frye is Professor of History at Eastern Connecticut State University and author of Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick (Simon and Schuster, 2018). This recent book on walls has been reviewed by journals such as National Geographic, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone and is scheduled soon to appear in Italian, Mandarin, Polish, and Lithuanian translations. Professor Frye has published in numerous journals (including Classical World, Classica et Mediaevalia, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Byzantion, Historia, Nottingham Medieval Studies, etc.) and has worked as archaeological excavator at Roman Vindolanda (Hadrian’s Wall) and Sibot-3 (Roman settlement in Dacia, now in Transylvania Romania).

This event is organized by the Mellon Intersections Group on Imagineering and the Technosphere.