Illustrator and writer David Macaulay (The Way Things Work, Castle, Cathedral, and numerous other award-winning titles) will deliver the annual C. P. Snow Lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Park Auditorium on Thursday, April 26. The event is free and open to the public.
Macaulay's talk is entitled "Body Building and other Architectural Journeys." In it he will discuss working at the intersection of science, technology, and art. Along the way he will introduce us to some of the ideas of his forthcoming book, The Way We Work, which will explore the workings of the human body via Macaulay's unique art and style. Prior to the lecture, the winner of the annual C. P. Snow Scholar Award will be announced, honoring student achievement that lies at the intersection of ideas from both the sciences and humanities.
Writes Macaulay of his upcoming talk, “The Way We Work will be one of a number of examples with which I hope to present the often convoluted, inevitably frustrating, occasionally mind altering, and almost entirely solitary exercise upon which I have frittered away most of the past 35 years,” Macaulay said. “I’ll retrace some of the meandering paths that have lead to the creation of a variety of picture books from the world of architecture, cause and effect, archeology, technology, and now the human body. While a good time is intended for all, seating by the exits will be offered on a first come first serve basis.”
Macaulay’s books have garnered a number of awards, including the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, an American Institute of Architects Medal, the Washington Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award, a Hans Christian Anderson Award nomination, and the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston for an outstanding contribution to science. Three of his titles—-Cathedral, Castle, and Pyramid-—have been made into popular PBS television programs.
The late physicist and novelist C. P. Snow was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from Ithaca College in 1967. In 1959 he wrote, “Literary intellectuals at one pole--at the other scientists, and as the most representative, physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension—sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all, a lack of understanding.” The C. P. Snow Lecture Series is an attempt to bridge that gulf.
For more information, contact Peter Melcher, assistant professor of biology, at (607) 274-3980 or pmelcher@ithaca.edu.
