Passionate Curiosities

Passionate Curiosities explores the collections held in the University of Michigan's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology through the lens of the people whose intellectual interests, financial backing, and social networks brought artifacts to Ann Arbor from the 1880s to the 1990s. Through purchases and expeditions, these individuals shaped the Museum's internationally recognized antiquities from the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, North Africa, Egypt, and the Near East, extensive photographic documentation of these regions from the early 1900s, and significant assemblages of early Christian and Islamic visual culture. An intriguing array of personalities--from archaeologists, missionaries, and diplomats to industrialists, bankrollers, and inventors--weave through these pages. They include Ernst Herzfeld, the eminent Orientalist who helped forge antiquities legislation in Iran; Luigi Cesnola, the rapacious harvester of Cypriot sites; Esther Van Deman, the pioneering feminist and scholar of Roman construction techniques; and Samuel Goudsmit, the renowned nuclear physicist and avid Egyptologist. World-famous dealers who established standards in antiquities connoisseurship likewise populate these sagas. Readers will encounter Edgar J. Banks, a swashbuckling purveyor of Mesopotamian antiquities and entrepreneur of biblical documentary films; Maurice Nahman, the "lion of Cairo"; and the colorful members of the Tano dealer dynasty in Egypt. This copiously illustrated book will interest general readers as well as scholars curious about the holdings of the Kelsey, early collectors and dealers, and the history of museums.

For some kids, school offers a positive and engaging experience. For others, it's a boring, stressful, and frustrating waste of time. If your child is in the second category, why keep tormenting them? Instead, why not help them find an educational environment where they feel genuinely motivated, excited, and empowered? In this eye-opening book, Blake Boles makes the case for leaving conventional school and taking one of the many alternative paths through K-12 that exist today. He addresses parents' major concerns about unconventional education -- Can my kids still go to college? Will they still be employable? How will they learn to work hard? -- while highlighting the hidden benefits of self-directed learning, such as improved parent-child relationships, a more balanced decision-making process regarding college, and a heightened sense of autonomy and connection. Drawing upon 15 years of work as a mentor and guide for adolescents in alternative and experiential learning environments -- as well as his own unconventional life path -- Boles weaves together narrative, theory, and research to build a powerful argument for granting children unusual levels of freedom and responsibility.

Since its emergence in the mid-1980s through the protagonism of free software and open source movements, the concept of freely shareable technology has steadily established itself in the following decades to enter the 21st century as a leading industrial paradigm. From the original ambit of software technology, the principles of collaborative construction of publicly accessible knowledge grounding the open source paradigm have been extended to embrace any intellectual artifact made available under non-exclusive rights of utilization, development, and distribution. It is noteworthy, however, that whilst on one hand it is not difficult to enumerate advantages of the use of open source products by individuals and organizations—whether related to cost reduction, socio-technological inclusion, governance of technology development, security and privacy transparency, among others—on the other hand, it is not as immediate to identify their motivation to develop open source technology. While there may surely be initiatives driven by either ethical grounds, personal avocation, or public policies, those reasons alone do not explain the lasting success of many large community-driven projects, nor why large commercial enterprises massively invest in open source development. Business Models and Strategies for Open Source Projects investigates the rationales and the strategy underlying companies’ decisions to produce and release open source products as well as which business models have succeeded. Covering topics such as embedded systems, open source ecosystems, and software companies, this premier reference source is a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers, students and educators of higher education, librarians, software developers, researchers, and academicians.

Purposeful Museum Programming Using Visitor Response Pedagogies offers museums of all sizes and genres practical, accessible, and inclusive programming ideas. Museums need to embrace a new model of educational programming, prioritizing and nurturing visitors’ personal responses to pieces while developing important skills in the process. By synthesizing research and teaching approaches in the field, this exploration demonstrates that museum programming grounded in effective theories of learning and emotional response is most impactful in building community among diverse learners, enhancing learning, and supporting social and emotional growth by validating visitors’ unique life experiences and perspectives. Grouped as Visitor Response Pedagogies (VRPs), programming that focuses on these elements and other transferable skills offers a new model in museum education that is adaptable at museums of all genres. The VRP A-Z Toolkit offers a multitude of ideas and highlights innovative responsive programs occurring at museums all around the world. This is the new “must-have” educational handbook for all museums seeking new ways to enhance their programmatical offerings.

This is the first thorough investigation of the Brummer brothers’ remarkable career as dealers in antiques, curiosities and modernism in Paris and New York over six decades (1906-1964). A dozen specialists aggregate their expertise to explore extant dealer records and museum archives, parse the wide-ranging Brummer stock, and assess how objects were sourced, marketed, labelled, restored, and displayed. The research provides insights into emerging collecting fields as they crystallised, at the crossroads between market and museum. It questions the trope of the tastemaker; the translocation of material culture, and the dealers’ prolific relationships with illustrious collectors, curators, scholars, artists, and fellow dealers.

Hybrid Geographies reconsiders the relationship between human and non-human, the social and the material, showing how they are intimately and variously linked. General arguments, informed by work in critical geography, feminist theory, environmental ethics, and science studies are illustrated throughout with detailed case-study material.

"Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen"--

No other book on teaching has excited me as much as this one. It should be the core text for prospective teachers in any field' -- Jonathan Potter, English and Drama Teacher Camden Hills Regional High School, Rockport, ME 'VanDeWeghe presents powerful instructional practices to help students use both their hearts and their minds in learning' -- Louann Reid, Professor Colorado State University To generate truly compelling learning experiences and increase retention of new information, educators need the knowledge and tools to engage students from both a neurological and humanistic perspective. Richard VanDeWeghe provides an inside look at what happens in students' minds and hearts when they are engaged and "in the groove." Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihaly's idea of "flow"--a state of intrinsic control, curiosity, interest, and inquiry that is the ultimate experiential goal for learning--this book provides holistic strategies for encouraging students to become motivated, engaged learners. Teachers will find: - Information on brain function and memory pathways - Spiritual and emotional principles of the heart that influence learning - Strategies for guiding open-ended discussions, quality questioning, and teacher modeling - Immediate, practical applications for language arts, science, maths, and social studies - Vignettes illustrating effective teacher dialogue and classroom involvement Engaged Learning is a clear, concise, and elegant resource that helps teachers understand what it means to be a highly motivated learner.