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Last night's lecture was only so-so. There wasn't really a description of it other than the title on Penn's website, so we weren't sure really what the topic was. Basically, the lecturer talked about the relations between the Arabs and Turks in this particular region of the Middle East, 600-800 or so AD, and how this affected trade on the Silk Road. And if she had put it that way, the whole lecture would have made a lot more sense. Instead she showed us a lot of maps, and said a lot of things that were way over my head, when if she had just told it more like a story (the Turks fought for a while, but then some Turkish princes took their retinues and bodyguards and joined up, and this had a major affect on culture in that area, as demonstrated in these neat excavations that have been going on), it would have been much more interesting to everyone. Another classic case of someone very intelligent and very knowledgeable not being able to distill it down to a layman's perspective. By the time she got through all the maps and started showing some photos of the amazing wall paintings, I was dozing. She's also doing a lecture on Samarkand in March, which I think I'll be skipping, although if it's just Samarkand then maybe there won't be so many maps and she'll get to the interesting stuff sooner.
This lecture was held in the second-floor lecture hall, which I'd never been in before and in fact didn't know existed, which is interesting considering that the second floor lecture hall is gigantic and built out of stone like a gothic cathedral. Kind of an amazing room. The reception afterward was held in the rotunda, which is the huge room with all the Chinese art. It's a great place for an event, but not when that event's main appetizer is tunafish on a cracker. Seriously. There was also lemony cheese on a cracker, a bowl of nuts, and some sort of fried balls with mayonnaise to dip them in. For all the several hundred people who attended the lecture, that was it, no cheese, no pastries or anything. The smell of the tunafish was gross. However, I still had a good time dissing the whole thing with K, and of course we'll be back for another one at some point. I really wish I could go to the plague lecture next month, because that's one of the things I'm REALLY interested in about the Silk Road, but I will be at AWP. K says she might try to go and report back.
This lecture was held in the second-floor lecture hall, which I'd never been in before and in fact didn't know existed, which is interesting considering that the second floor lecture hall is gigantic and built out of stone like a gothic cathedral. Kind of an amazing room. The reception afterward was held in the rotunda, which is the huge room with all the Chinese art. It's a great place for an event, but not when that event's main appetizer is tunafish on a cracker. Seriously. There was also lemony cheese on a cracker, a bowl of nuts, and some sort of fried balls with mayonnaise to dip them in. For all the several hundred people who attended the lecture, that was it, no cheese, no pastries or anything. The smell of the tunafish was gross. However, I still had a good time dissing the whole thing with K, and of course we'll be back for another one at some point. I really wish I could go to the plague lecture next month, because that's one of the things I'm REALLY interested in about the Silk Road, but I will be at AWP. K says she might try to go and report back.
