Benedict, Ruth (1887–1948)
Known as America’s first woman anthropologist, Ruth Fulton Benedict was a cultural relativist and folklorist. She studied anthropology under Franz Boas (1858–1942) at Columbia University,…
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Bourke-White, Magaret (1904–1971)
Margaret Bourke-White was an influential American photojournalist associated with Life Magazine. Bourke-White briefly studied at Columbia University under Photo-Secessionist Clarence White (1871–1925) before graduating from…
Douglas, Aaron (1899–1979)
Aaron Douglas was an African American artist and educator often referred to as the father of “Black Art.” He was a leading figure of the…
Boas, Franz (1858–1942)
Franz Boas was a founder of the fields of modern anthropology and ethnography. He created the anthropology department at Boston’s Clark University and oversaw the…
Moses, Robert (1888–1981)
Robert Moses was an influential urban planner in New York State in the mid-20th century. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1888, he relocated with…
Anderson, Patrick (1915–79)
Canadian poet and editor Patrick Anderson was born on August 4, 1915 in Surrey, England. Though he was English by birth, and would later return…
Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973)
Born near Stuttgart, Germany, the philosopher Max Horkheimer, who obtained his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt, is best known as a leader of the…
Kofi, Vincent Akwete (1923–1974)
Vincent Akwete Kofi was born in Odumasi-Krobo, Ghana. After training at Achimota College, which had the first and foremost art department in West Africa, he…
Schapiro, Meyer (1904–1996)
Art historian Meyer Schapiro was born in Šiauliai [Shavley], Lithuania, on September 23, 1904, but soon immigrated to the United States with his family in…
Orrego-Salas, Juan (1919--)
Juan Orrego-Salas was a Chilean composer and musicologist. Born in Santiago, Chile on January 1919, he began his music education in Santiago, while also pursuing…
Jayyusi, Salma Khadra (1926–)
Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian origins. A writer and researcher in her own right, she is better…
Sorel, Georges (1847–1922)
Georges Sorel was a French social thinker and political theorist. An engineer of modest bourgeois extraction, he was a state employee for twenty-five years. He…
Yokomitsu, Riichi (1898–1947)
Riichi Yokomitsu was a Japanese novelist who, as one of the founders of Shinkankaku-ha [New Sensation School], helped introduce European avant-garde literature into Japan during…
Nasiri, Rafa al- (1940–2013)
Born in Tikrit, Iraq, Rafa al-Nasiri earned a bachelor’s degree in printmaking from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1959. From 1959 to…
Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush (1835–1917)
Yitskhok Leybush Peretz, or I. L. Peretz (1835–1917), was a Yiddish and Hebrew writer, known for introducing modernist trends into Yiddish literature. Born in the…
Troeltsch, Ernst (1865–1923)
Ernst Troeltsch was a liberal German Protestant theologian and philosopher of religion whose work spans the last decades of the German Empire and the early…
Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901)
The Boxer Rebellion (November 1899–September 1901) was a Chinese national uprising against what was seen as the corrupting influence of western ideologies and practices. Initiated…
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1895–1975)
Mikhail Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher and thinker whose long career concerned aesthetics, ethics, literary and cultural theory, linguistics, and sociology. His earliest works, in…
Lukács, György (1885–1971)
György Lukács was a Hungarian philosopher and literary critic. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he spent his youth in Berlin and Vienna studying German…
Mumford, Lewis (1895–1990)
Lewis Mumford was a prolific author, social philosopher and prominent American critic of architecture and Urbanism. A native of New York City, he penned a…
Functionalism
Functionalism, a central idea in modernist design, rejects ornamentation unrelated to an item’s function, resulting in design that emphasizes a utilitarian purpose. The style was…
Jaspers, Karl (1883−1969)
Karl Jaspers was a German psychiatrist and existential philosopher. After graduating from medical school in 1908, Jaspers took up a research position in a psychiatric…
Frobenius, Leo (1873–1938)
Leo Viktor Frobenius, a German ethnologist and philosopher of culture with a particular interest in African cultures, was a central figure in the German discipline…
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School (Institute für Sozialforschung) was founded in 1923 by Felix Weil and fellow students Max Horkheimer and Friedrich Pollack, and was originally endowed…
Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company is the legendary English-language lending library and bookstore in Paris, which was founded in 1919 by Sylvia Beach (1887–1962). The shop opened…