Just a little thought on how amazing is this stay in NYC. I walk every morning down from Union Square (my dorm is at the Palladium) to Washington Square Park, salute Garibaldi, and fall into the magic space of NYU’s Bobst Library, whose tiled Escher-esque floor never ceases to fascinate me.
Of course, before I stop to have breakfast at the University Place student cafeteria. It’s there I usually meet some of my fellow scholars-in-residence.
What an amazing group of people. I am not going to name them (they are 24!) but each has a special project or research going on, and all have awesome stories about their work. There’s so much to learn from them, and I cannot really stop from feeling so privileged and honored to be here among them. And in NY!
This is what puts me at peace with the concept of University. This is what a University is all about, and fortunately so, because this is the last space left to do these things.
Like doing “Photogenic Drawings if Museum Display Birds”. Thomas is going to the American Museum of Natural History, put into position some museum taxidermic birds, place a big sheet of photopaper behind them, turn the light on, and capture their silhouette.
Or Susan’s interest in “Christians and Jews in Fourth-Century Jerusalem”. Susan talks about Emperor Constantine like we would mention Queen Elizabeth; she has an amazing knowledge of histoy and she can speak some Italian too.
Then there’s my friend Sonia Fritz, the filmmaker who just released her America full-feature film. She will be researching Rita Moreno and Miriam Colon and the way the “social construction of gender have shaped the interpretations of the film and theater oeuvres” of the two actresses.
And there’s also some psycholinguistics, a “Big Mac” business integration project from friend Richard, who comes from Hawai’i and who is the most wonderful social constructivist of the world. Just follow him and you go places and meet people and eat well!
But perhaps the project that most fascinates me is the translation of works by a 12th Century Persian poet, Farid al-Din Attar -unknown to me for sure!- who inspired Rumi and apparently had also influence on American poetry. And yet another quite intriguing is Ignacio’s exploration of Jewish symbolism through visiting Jewish cemeteries…
There’s no quantum physicist here, but the research material I’m hearing every day is wonderful! Such an inspiration. Thus, I just want to thank all of them, fellow Scholars-in-Residence at NYU’s Faculty Resource Network, plus the FRN Director Debra M. Szybinski.
Antonio; Suena maravilloso. Que sigas disfrutando.