Marco Polo was famous for traveling to East Asia, but some historians argue he never reached it. Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin will discuss the research for his book, The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps.
Dr. Olshin is a historian of cartography. He became intrigued with Marco Polo when he read about some privately held maps said to have belonged to the family of Marco Polo. Olshin explored this historical puzzle—his complex research ranged from deciphering peculiar Latin texts to studying centuries-old Chinese legends.
Benjamin B. Olshin, Ph.D. is a former Professor of Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and Design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. After undergraduate training in Classics at Williams College, he began his peregrinations around the world, teaching in England and Portugal. Later, he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto in Canada, with a specialty in the history of cartography. Dr. Olshin has been a Fulbright Scholar in Portugal and a Fulbright Specialist in Iceland, and a recipient of two NEH grants. He has been involved in projects in Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, and the U.S. in the fields of the history of science, cultural studies, and philosophy. He has written a number of papers and presented in these same areas, with works appearing in journals in the U.S., Latin America, East Asia, and West Africa. In addition to the history of cartography and exploration, Dr. Olshin has also written on the philosophy of physics, with his book Deciphering Reality: Simulations, Tests, and Designs, as well as on the history and sociology of technology with a work entitled Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories
AGE GROUP: | Adult |
EVENT TYPE: | Class |
TAGS: | online | Marco_Polo | history | class | adult lecture | adult | #adultlecture |
