Hutton Honors College

What Is the Future of the Past?
Discussion Supper with Classics Scholar James O'Donnell

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 * 5-6:30 p.m. * Harlos House, 1331 E. Tenth St. * SIGN-UP REQUIRED

Why don't we always choose to be good? What can times long gone tell us about how to live in the twenty-first century? How do writing and memory change in the digital world? Join James O'Donnell, a celebrated teacher, scholar, innovator, and online pioneer, for supper and a conversation about what history is, what history can tell us, how cyberspace affects our imagination of the past and the future, and other topics of special interest to you.

Provost and professor of classics at Georgetown University, O'Donnell is well-known for his work on the history and culture of the Roman Empire and the wider world beyond and equally recognized for his use of new technologies to explore the past and bring it to the present. He is the author of numerous books, including Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace; Augustine, Sinner & Saint; and Ruin of the Roman Empire. The supper is co-sponsored by the Wells Scholars Program.

On campus as a Patten Lecturer, O'Donnell will speak on "Two Hundred Years Is a Long Time (for a Historian), or, What Should Historians Write About?" on Tuesday, Oct. 28, and "Ten Years Is a Long Time (on the Internet), or, What Will Cyberspace Make of the Humanities?" on Thursday, Oct. 30. Both lectures begin at 7:30 p.m. in Ballantine Hall 109 and are free and open to the public.

Photos From This Event | Fall 2008 Programs | Extracurricular Home