Franke Program in Science & the Humanities

Distinguished Speaker Series
Marc Brackett, Yale University

Emotions influence learning, decision making, relationships, physical and mental health, creativity, and performance. But it’s our wise use of emotion that’s especially important. In this interactive presentation, Professor Brackett will (1) describe our recent large-scale studies on the emotional lives of children and adults, (2) share our Center’s theoretical model of emotional intelligence, (3) present our evidence-based approach to developing emotional intelligence in schools and workplaces which have reached millions of children and adults, and (4) teach participants tools to develop emotional intelligence to enhance personal and professional success.

Sponsored by the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities
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Poster

Mapping as Knowing Lecture Series
Frank Snowden, Yale University
(Franke Program in Science and the Humanities)

This talk will consider the importance of mapping for the understanding of epidemic diseases since John Snow’s work on cholera in London. The focus will be on ways in which traditional maps have greatly helped to understand how race, pre-existing conditions, and air pollution have served as drivers of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Poster

The traditional focus of historians on written documents often results in greater attention to literate societies, but scientific breakthroughs in recent years have underpinned multiple discoveries about societies with little or no documentation. Some of the most exciting discoveries concern the voyages of the Malayo-Polynesians from the Malay peninsula to Madagascar, Hawaii, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and New Zealand, the extent of Angkor Wat, and the opening of overland routes across the Americas. This talk will introduce some of the new technologies discussed in Hansen’s book, The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began (April 2020, Scribner).
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Poster

Distinguished Speaker Series
The movement of large groups of animals—such as flocks of birds or schooling of fish—often appears harmonic and soothing to the eye, almost as if animal collectives were dancing to some musical rules not visible to the human eye. Yet at the same time, the sound of the natural world is increasingly shaped by the timber of the drums of human activities and habitat destruction across the world. In this talk, Ellis-Soto combines new cutting-edge technology, with biological principles and musical theory to take a dive into representing the lives of animal collectives through art and music. From music on a farm, art exhibitions, up to involving of local youth, we invite you to take the plunge into the sounds of animal collectives and ecosystems.

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Poster

Mapping as Knowing Lecture Series

The act of creating an inclusive and connective network of all musical practices—sung, played, written, and unwritten—quickly reveals flaws in the hierarchies and priorities that have largely mapped the geography of Early Modern music history. But such charting can also offer the chance for revision, that is, to move across the historically constructed (and still not outdated) boundaries of “central” and “peripheral” styles, “greater” and “lesser” composers, singular and plural modes of performance, notated and improvised practices, and the border between original compositions and their adaptations. In this talk, Professor Victor Coelho of Boston University proposes a more “polycentric” template for understanding music history between ca. 1420 and 1600, drawing on several case studies dealing with performance, sound, notation, and transmission as examples of why a history formed of many discrete parts with their individual stylistic constellations may be preferable to attempts at constructing a unified musical universe.

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Poster