Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Truffaut, François fräNswäˈ trüfōˈ [key], 1932–84, French film director and critic. Known in his early 20s as a writer for the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma, he was noted...

(Encyclopedia) Davies, Sir Peter Maxwell dāˈvĭs [key], 1934–2016, English composer and conductor, b. Salford, studied Royal Manchester College of Music and Princeton with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. He w...

(Encyclopedia) Kemble, Roger, 1721–1802, English actor and manager. During his years as the leader of a traveling company, he married (1753) Sarah Wood, 1735–1806, an actress. They had 12 children, thus founding...

(Encyclopedia) Vidal, Gore (Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, Jr.), 1925–2012, American writer, b. West Point, N.Y. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where a formative influence was his witty and scholarly grandfather, Sena...

(Encyclopedia) Foucault, Michel, 1926–84, French philosopher and historian. He was professor at the Collège de France (1970–84). He is renowned for historical studies that reveal the sometimes morally disturbin...

(Encyclopedia) Yogacara yōˌgəkärˈə [key] [Skt.,=yoga practice], philosophical school of Mahayana Buddhism, also known as the Vijnanavada or Consciousness School. The founders of this school in India were Maitr...

(Encyclopedia) Tubman, Harriet, c.1820–1913, American abolitionist, b. Dorchester co., Md. Born into slavery, she escaped to Phildelphia in 1849, and subsequently became one of the most successful “conductors”...

(Encyclopedia) brutalism or new brutalism, architectural style of the late 1950s and 60s that arose in reaction to the lightness, polish, and use of glass and steel that had come to characterize the orthodox Interna...

(Encyclopedia) graffito gräf-fēˈtō [key]. 1 Method of ornamenting architectural plaster surfaces. The designs are produced by scratching a topcoat of plaster to reveal an undercoat of contrasting and deeper colo...

(Encyclopedia) nullification, in U.S. history, a doctrine expounded by the advocates of extreme states' rights. It held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that they deem unconstituti...