Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Sancar, Aziz, 1946–, Turkish-American biochemist and molecular biologist, M.D. Istanbul Univ., 1969, Ph.D. Univ. of Texas at Dallas, 1977. From 1977to 1982, Sancar was a researcher at the Yale Schoo...

(Encyclopedia) happening, an artistic event of a theatrical nature, but usually improvised spontaneously without the framework of a plot. The term originated with the creation and performance in 1959 of Allan Kaprow...

(Encyclopedia) Webster, John, 1580?–1634, English dramatist, b. London. Although little is known of his life, there is evidence that he worked for Philip Henslowe, collaborating with such playwrights as Dekker and...

(Encyclopedia) elegy, in Greek and Roman poetry, a poem written in elegiac verse (i.e., couplets consisting of a hexameter line followed by a pentameter line). The form dates back to 7th cent. b.c. in Greece and poe...

(Encyclopedia) Muncie mŭnˈsē [key], city (1990 pop. 71,035), seat of Delaware co., E Ind., on the White River; inc. 1854. It is a trade, processing, and manufacturing center. The city is in a fertile agricultural...

(Encyclopedia) Nicolay, John George nĭkˈəlā [key], 1832–1901, biographer of Lincoln, b. Bavaria. In 1837 he was brought to the United States, and his family settled in Pike co., Ill. He worked on the Pittsfiel...

(Encyclopedia) Bridgman, Laura, 1829–89, the first blind and deaf person to be successfully educated, b. Hanover, N.H. Under the guidance of Dr. S. G. Howe, of the Perkins School for the Blind, she learned to read...

(Encyclopedia) Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm, 1853–1917, English actor-manager, whose original name was Herbert Draper Beerbohm. He was a half-brother of Max Beerbohm. His first success (1884) was as the curate in Th...

(Encyclopedia) Erskine, John, 1879–1951, American educator, author, and musician, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (B.A., 1900; Ph.D., 1903). He taught first at Amherst (1903–9) and then at Columbia, becoming pr...

(Encyclopedia) Mucha, Alphonse älfôNsˈ mo͝okhˈä [key], 1860–1939, Czech artist. Mucha's art nouveau style, characterized by twisting, swirling flower and hair motifs, set the style for poster art for a gener...