Arts & Humanities : Editor's Choice
by Amy Hembree

Art Crimes
www.gatech.edu/desoto/graf/
Think of the Web as a huge, online wall for graffiti artists. Started in 1994, the volunteer Art Crimes project provides cultural information and resources related to the art form, and emphasizes that much of the world's graffiti is created by artists, not gangs. Art Crimes also provides information about shows, events, stickers and styles, but the main attraction here is the work that's found mostly on city walls and trains, graffiti artists' favorite canvases.

The works are categorized by country and region, and in the train gallery, some works are pinned down to a regional freight line. Many of the artists are represented by more than their graffiti art, as Art Crimes proprietors regularly feature interviews and articles, inviting all interested artists to submit work from a variety of media. And what do the artists like to see besides graffiti art? How about the Phatlist, a collection of links to "Hip Hop Places," music, zines and personal home pages. If the art is spray-painted and phat, then it's probably here.

ArtServe
rubens.anu.edu.au/
From an Australian National University art history professor comes ArtServe, where visitors will find around 16,000 images concerned with the history of art and architecture, mostly from the Mediterranean basin. Not for the timid and packed with images and information, the main menu offers a variety of choices from classical art to prehistoric ritual monuments of the British isles, to Islamic architecture and contemporary architecture in Hong Kong.

Not satisfied with this mere explosion of tutorials, guides, photographs and graphics, Artserve also documents exactly how the recording of all this was done, including information about currently employed technologies, help on graphics techniques and a link to "Computers & the History of Art: Teaching, Images, Internet." Not exactly a simple stop on the Web, scholars, students and amateurs alike will want to camp out for several days, exploring each of the hundreds of links and pages in detail. ArtServe is not only a valuable resource for art history information and research, it's also indispensable for those who wish to set up similar pages, implement graphics imaging and iconic systems, learn more about the teaching of art history or simply find links to include on their own pages.

Big Dummies Guide to Theology, Philosophy, and Ethics
www.industrial.com/~simon/bdintro.html
This "Big Dummies" guide bills itself as "a starter kit for technoids," those, ah ... computer geeks perhaps unfamiliar with the less virtual (but no less conceptual) aspects of humanity: spirituality, religion, metaphysics, ethics and philosophy. The author also comes forward with the confession that "this book will probably offend nearly everyone."

The guide is divided into three sections covering religion, philosophy and ethics, but doesn't let its users jump into any topic too early. From the home page, readers can step gingerly to the Vocabulary of Deep Thought or, if they already know all the words, proceed with confidence to the Seven Deadly Arguments which include original sin, creationism, evil done in the name of religion and the ever-popular Does God Exist? Ever under construction, this guide provides a solid and simple start to those just beginning to grapple with the mysteries of existence and the existence of mysteries.

Lewis Carroll Home Page
www.students.uiuc.edu/~jbirenba/carroll.html
Who was the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? He was a man who, according to this page, "didn't want his true identity linked to his best work," which is why he wrote his best work under the name Lewis Carroll. Not only a writer, Dodgson lectured in mathematics at Christ Church Oxford and was a clergyman. As a photographer, his favorite subject was Alice Liddell, who became the Alice of his most famous works.

Exhaustive and packed with biographical info, photographs and links, the Lewis Carroll page is a lot like a crowded attic: there's stuff that's both familiar and strange, new and well-worn, surprising and commonplace. Available goodies include electronic texts, graphics from the original "Alice" books, biographies, a lesson plan for teaching "Jabberwocky," articles, mathematical puzzles and riddles, the reason why "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was banned in China, and trunks full of Carroll trinkets and doo-dads. And lots of photographs. So prepare to get lost and "just follow the grin."

The English Server at Carnegie Mellon University
english-www.hss.cmu.edu/
Managed by student, staff and faculty at Carnegie Mellon, the English Server has been publishing Internet humanities texts -- primarily research, criticism, novels and hypertext works -- since 1990. Quite a collection has accumulated since then, and the site provides one of the widest, original varieties of humanities texts available online (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Not merely a directory of links to other sites, the work here includes "Bad Subjects," a journal of progressive issues, "Cultronix," another journal dealing with contemporary art and cultural theory, and a section devoted exclusively to Marx and Engels. Topics here encompass a variety of humanities concerns, both traditional (18th century studies, feminism) and the new-fangled (cyber and multimedia collections). Rich in resources, yet simply designed and easily navigated by either the text or graphical views, the English Server is a primary Web resource for both scholars and casual visitors.

Enter Evolution: Theory and History
ucmp1.berkeley.edu/exhibittext/evolution.html
The University of California Museum of Paleontology presents this online exhibit devoted to the theory of evolution and its importance as "the binding force of all biological research." Neatly arranged, the exhibit opens with a quote from Charles Darwin and links to four important topics in the theory's study: systematics, taxonomy, dinosaur discoveries and vertebrate flight, "a case study in convergent evolution."

In introducing important scientists, the exhibit reaches back to the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Carolus Linnaeus, among others, with descriptions of their work and how it relates to the formulation and eventual study of evolutionary theory. The final link in the exhibit's evolution is to the full text of Darwin's "On The Origin Of Species By Means of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life." Clear and interesting, Enter Evolution offers a sound presentation of a sometimes confusing, still controversial topic.

EXPO
sunsite.unc.edu/expo/ticket_office.html
Presented quite literally as an exhibition, EXPO offers its visitors virtual "tickets" to a series of "pavilions" it has created from space, text and images donated by the U.S. Library of Congress. A variety of displays are featured, among them Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture, which presents about 200 of the Vatican Library's most precious manuscripts and maps, many of which were instrumental in the re-discovery of the classical heritage of Greece and Rome. The Soviet Archive Exhibit is the "first public display of the hitherto highly secret internal record of Soviet Communist rule." 1492: An Ongoing Voyage is an examination of the interactions between native Americans and Europeans in the years between 1492 and 1600. And the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit examines the mysteries surrounding ancient documents from the settlement of Qumran and the effects the scrolls have had on modern religious, biblical and historical study.

Other pavilions include a paleontology exhibit from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Palace of Diocletian at Split, a fascinating structure from the late Roman empire. Tourists at the EXPO will also find a restaurant, post office and exhibit catalogs for sale. Complete, yet diverse in its subject matter, EXPO is one of the most comprehensive Web museums on the Internet.

Finding God in Cyberspace
users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/durham/gresham.html
According to this page, God is everywhere, even in this void we call cyberspace. A guide to religious studies resources on the Internet, the material here is categorized by resource type with a special section of links to important and popular topics such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and mythology.

The print resources directory has information for finding dissertations, publishers, booksellers and libraries. A directory of people links to a variety of electronic conferences and scholarly societies. At digital resources, visitors will find the usual set of Internet links, including electronic texts and journals, software and multimedia items. Easy to browse or search, this page, which was designed by a scholar in library science and religious studies, provides an excellent starting point for finding God in cyberspace ... or anywhere else you choose to look.

International Philosophical Preprint Exchange
phil-preprints.l.chiba-u.ac.jp/IPPE.html
From Chiba University, Japan, the International Philosophical Preprint Exchange (IPPE) provides access to pre-publication philosophical papers categorized by subject areas including aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, metaphysics, political philosophy and more. Abstracts of the most recent preprints and instructions for submission are also available, as is information about journals, books and conferences.

The organization of the IPPE page is very straightforward, navigable by either graphical or text maps, with alternatives for both quick and full access. IPPE has also published many of its preprints on CD-ROM, which can be ordered from this site.

Megacities
valley.interact.nl/MEGACITIES
We all know that the world's population is exploding, but the growth of "megacities," cities with over 10 million inhabitants, pose special ecological, economical, structural and human rights challenges. According to the Megacities Foundation, formed by the International Academy of Architecture, Mexico City and Calcutta already have 20 million inhabitants, and by the year 2000 it's predicted there will be 21 megacities.

To be better prepared to deal with these massive settlements of the very near future, the Megacities Foundation is hosting a series of international congresses and assembling a Codex that will cover solutions in urban management and development while taking into account geographic, cultural and economic diversity. Scholars and activists in architecture, the environmental and human rights movements, urban planning, public administration, and many other related disciplines, may find the beginnings to solutions -- and many more questions -- at the Megacities 2000 page.

A project overview and details about its founders' academic and personal backgrounds is presented, as well as conference reports and meeting information. However, the site's central feature is the evolving Megacities Codex itself, which covers such topics as interculturality, city sizes, reaction to urban development, liveability and needed space. Visit this interesting and thought-provoking site to see why the Megacities Foundation is based on "the awareness of the future role of cities as the dominant type of settlement for humanity."

Principia Cybernetica Web
pespmc1.vub.ac.be/
Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Need help with these questions and a lot more? Queries like these are the basis of philosophy, and the Principia Cybernetica Project, an international organization, attempts to deal with them in a interesting and up-to-date fashion, that is, "with the help of the most recent cybernetic theories and technologies."

The folks at Principia Cybernetica believe that the best way to form contemporary philosophy is through the use of information science, that all systems are constructed by a "continuing process of self-organization." The Principia Cybernetica Web, based at the Free University of Brussels, introduces, annotates and explains the project's theories and methods and offers links to sites that deal with complexity, human-machine interaction, cognition and related topics. The main theory, MetaSystem Transition Theory, is detailed in a short, hyperlinked essay, and an extensive background for Cybernetics and Systems Theory is also provided, including a dictionary of important terms.

The site is easily navigable via the text links or an image map that not only takes readers to each major topic, but also serves as a visual aid for understanding Principia Cybernetica issues. Have something to say about the ideas here? Feel free to submit suggestions or general comments to the User Annotations.

Reeder's Egypt Page
www.sirius.com/~reeder/egypt.html
Want to learn more about ancient Egypt, but afraid of curses and those nasty asp bites? Then try Reeder's Egypt Page for the beginning of deeper study or an overview of some fascinating Egyptological subjects. Start your tour with current issues of "KMT," the quarterly journal devoted to the study of "Kemet" or "The Black Land," which is what the ancient Egyptians called their home. After learning more about the subject, and maybe picking up some vocabulary there, continue to the page's main features.

The Saqqara tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, two male manicurists to fifth dynasty king Niusere, is fascinating to many Egyptologists because of how it details the lives of its two occupants, who shared an identical title in the palace and whose names are joined forever above the tomb's entrance. And who are the Muu? Why are they dancing? This page delves into one of the "most obscure and occult" subjects of Egyptology, and includes an article from "KMT." Far from being a stodgy, academic site, Reeder's Egypt Page is gorgeously presented and features all the photographs and images expected of such a fascinating, and timeless, subject.

The Secret History of the United States, 1962-1995
ucunix.san.uc.edu/~taylorrm/Welcome.html
The Secret History of the United States features a lot of stuff that you'd rather not think about. What? You would? Well, be careful. Dotted with quotes from Noam Chomsky's "The Chomsky Reader," Secret History opens with zingers such as bloody counterinsurgency campaigns and military interventions in Central America, the Caribbean, Guatemala and Greece.

Then, there are the nuclear secrets, UFO sightings (including the time then-California governor Reagan saw one), drug surprises, civil rights doozies, October Surprise tidbits and national debt horrors (voodoo economics, anyone?). The myriad secret histories here, which take the form of paragraphs and chunks of texts taken from the media and other published sources, are categorized by year and can also be navigated by subject. As an added surprise, Webmasters have included a link to "Germ Warfare," a short history provided courtesy of MovieLand Web. Now, where did I put that gas mask?

The Shiki Internet Haiku Salon
mikan.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~shiki/
Named for famous Japanese Haiku poet Shiki Masaoka, the Shiki Internet Haiku Salon seeks to introduce the beauty of Haiku with details about its form, history and artful aspects, as well as by encouraging others to practice its writing. Nature and the seasons are of special significance in Haiku -- the word "shiki" can also mean "The four seasons" in Japanese -- and the format is very strict: each poem must consist of only three lines of five, seven and five syllables respectively.

Fans of Haiku, as well as those new to the form, will enjoy this delicately-designed page which takes visitors step-by-step from the cultural and historical background of Haiku to an explanation of its international popularity and appreciation. Detailed instructions for writing Haiku are featured, including ancient and modern examples, a lesson plan, and, most important, the rules. Writers and readers are never alone in their enjoyment of Haiku: information about mailing lists, Haiku archives, contests and links to related sites are also featured, emphasizing the importance of Haiku as an interest that is best shared.

!Surrealisme!
pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/surr/
In Surrealistic art, "images swim congruently," and it is for the paintings and graphic works of such artists as Salvador Dali that the movement became famous, or possibly, infamous. With this in mind, put your expectations aside, and more than once visit !Surréalisme!, where you'll find much to amaze, astound and most likely confound. What is the "Vice of Surrealism?" Find out here ... maybe.

Who qualifies as a famous Surrealist? Mmmmmaybe that's here, too. There's also plenty ... or not ... of critical paranoia, Surrealist Games (is that redundant?), and writings and leftings. Visit the Department of Objects and Delusions, the Cadaveric Enigma Engine Generator and the ever-popular Surrealist Compliment Generator for wisdoms like, "Your unexpected explosion entangles us in a web of premature umbrellas and precocious timepieces." And if it becomes too much, you could always run home to your Dada.