Articles

If you wanted to create impactful art challenging the status quo in a repressive country, you’d think you would have to go “underground.” Indeed, that’s exactly where a new, alternative art form called Moscow Conceptualism arose in the late Soviet era – operating in secrecy, away from viewers, critics, and especially those in power. But Russian professor Mary Nicholas says that a subset of Moscow artists of the time – who she considers among the most influential -- challenged the idea they should be hidden -- and with great impact. For Nicholas, Exhibit A is a street procession in 1978, where a small group of conceptual artists called The Nest carried a red banner down a Moscow street.

A 10-member team with participants from Lehigh, Colorado State University, the University of California Irvine and Mongolia dug into the question of how the Altai Mountains influence the climate in the arid Mongolian desert. The Altai, an ancient mountain range, is at the convergence point of four countries: China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia.

Mark Bickhard, Henry R. Luce Professor of Cognitive Robotics and the Philosophy of Knowledge, challenges traditional metaphysical frameworks in his latest book, The Whole Person: Toward a Naturalism of Minds and Persons. Bickhard critiques the historical divide between the material world and mental phenomena, rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, and argues for a shift from substance-based metaphysics to process metaphysics. His model, called interactivism, emphasizes the evolutionary and developmental emergence of normative phenomena—such as representation, cognition, and language—through dynamic interactions, rather than static structures or substances.

Throughout history, political candidates have utilized falsehoods to sway voters, leveraging mistruths to discredit opponents or bolster their image. This age-old tactic has long been protected under the First Amendment's right to free speech. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed these strategies, enabling the creation of hyper-realistic fake images, videos, and audio, further complicating the landscape of political misinformation.Fake images, though fabricated, are protected under the same legal principles as traditional political lies, according to research by journalism professors Jeremy Littau and Daxton R. Stewart. Their study, The Right to Lie with AI?, delves into the First Amendment's implications on AI-driven false political speech.

Thomas Friedman, the internationally renowned and award-winning author, reporter, and columnist will deliver the annual Kenner Lecture on Cultural Understanding, Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 8:00 p.m. in Zoellner Arts Center’s Baker Hall.

Mary Foltz and local community members establish a historical marker in Kutztown honoring LGBTQ+ artist and activist Keith Haring

Meet the new director of the Africana Studies program and new faculty member of the English Department Simone A. James Alexander

Suzanne Edwards' edited volume with Matthew X. Vernon highlights women's medievalism which has often been silenced.

Physicist Rosi Reed investigates elements that hold the universe together.

Historian Nitzan Lebovic is examining how the concept of time itself has evolved by studying the thoughts and writings of influential 20th-century German Jewish thinkers.

Lisa Fredin employs quantum mechanics to examine the chemical physics of catalytic materials.

Lehigh theatre professor takes a collaborative approach to creating the world of a play.