Archive

Scholars-in-Training 2026

Last week marked the start of the Scholars-in-Training summer program at the CHS! Seven students local to the DMV were selected from a large pool of competitive applications. Read more

Masterpieces of Ancient and Medieval Astrology

In connection with the acquisition of facsimiles of some noteworthy medieval illuminated manuscripts dealing with astrology, Tejas S. Aralere, residential fellow 2025-2026 and assistant professor of classics and the humanities at the University of New Hampshire, introduces us to Yavana Jātaka, a 2nd-cent. CE Sanskrit astrological treatise often translated as the “Greek Horoscopy” because it appears to be the earliest source translating the Greco-Babylonian zodiac into Sanskrit, preceded by an introductory section on ancient Greek astrology by Rebecka Lindau, followed by descriptions of the items acquired for the CHS library. Read more

The Singer of Tales, 3rd edition

First published in 1960, Albert B. Lord’s The Singer of Tales remains the fundamental study of the distinctive techniques and aesthetics of oral epic poetry. Based upon pathbreaking fieldwork conducted in the 1930s and 1950s among oral epic singers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, Lord analyzes in impressive detail the techniques of oral composition in performance. He explores the consequences of this analysis for the interpretation of numerous works of… Read more

Library Updates

Spring 2026 has been a busy time for the CHS library as is true also throughout the year. We are now getting ready for the summer residential fellows and for readers who will utilize the library when teaching responsibilities are coming to an end for this academic year. During the summer the library will also try to catch up on the many tasks that have to take a back seat to assisting our spring and fall fellows and ordering and processing books. While several projects are in progress, some major tasks have been completed this spring. Read more

Adapting the Odyssey

Please join us on Tuesday, July 14, 2026 for a conversation on adapting Homer’s Odyssey with graphic novelist Gareth Hinds and scholar Suzanne Lye. Read more

The Beauty of Geometry: Two Seminal Works added to the Library Collection

The works of the ancient Greek mathematicians Euclid and Archimedes have been immensely influential since antiquity. Two medieval/renaissance manuscripts and printed works which the library recently acquired in the form of facsimiles were especially important as they were the first Latin translations into a language understood by most European intellectuals of the time as opposed to Greek and Arabic. In addition, the translators not only had to tackle Greek, Arabic, and Latin but also mathematical and astronomical calculations and geometric symbols. Read more