Oh, Jerusalem!: The Very Stone Cries Out
This is the heart of it, the whirlpool of human hopes and follies, the fault line where East and West rub each other raw. "Oh, Jerusalem," cried the prophet. We will visit naïvely, as from another planet, with no religious agenda or slant, to see why our world forever is transfixed by this bit of unhappy ground, why the stones underfoot moan with more passion than any place on earth. We will trace the history from Abraham to Solomon to Nebuchadnezzar to Titus to Arafat, from Saul to David to Jesus to Mohammad to Saladin to Netanyahu to failed warriors and failed peacemakers yet unborn. We will use images of the greatest Western art, maps, and evocative texts from the Bible and Koran to trace the 3000 years of pain and struggle of a place we cannot escape. "Oh, Jerusalem," wept Jesus.
Kenning, Douglas
Douglas Kenning, raised in Virginia, received a PhD from the Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland, and has lived overseas for most of his life, teaching at universities in Tunisia, Japan, and Italy. Besides being a professor of history and literature, he also has been a professional biologist, actor, army officer, Manhattan taxi driver, academic administrator, and writer of books, articles, and stage plays. He lives half the year in the San Francisco Bay Area, giving lecture series on subjects related to the histories and cultures of the Mediterranean area, and half the year in Siracusa, Sicily, where he runs Sicily Tour, a small tour guide business.