Book Burning and Eunuchs

At the refreshment table after the symposium today, I met a college professor from New England who is presenting on Saturday. He is a specialist in ancient book burning. He follows different movements in ancient Greece, Rome and Constantinople that promoted book burning. Just talking with him about his research was fascinating. Of course, book burning was a stronger act back when all books were laboriously written by hand. He also mentioned that books that were a target of book burning tended to be saved better than others because people would hide them. Years or even centuries later they were found and saved.

We took the shuttle bus home and had a great time talking with a couple of other people. He was describing his earlier research. He was a specialist in eunuchs in different civilizations, including ancient Greece. After attending a few conferences when people would come up to him and say, "hey, you're that eunuch guy, right?" he decided to change his area of specialty. If you don't know what a eunuch is, I'll let you look that definition up on your own...

After leaving the book-burning eunuch guy, I walked the streets of Istanbul. This is a vibrant city with loads of young people everywhere.