Dr Buki Fatona
@bukifatona
@University of Oxford, research in Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience & Religion: memory; imagination; action. ❤️classics, mathematics, & art❤️
Happy birthday Alexandre Dumas (1802) French novelist & playwright (The Three Musketeers & The Count of Monte Cristo etc) His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, was born into slavery and went on to have an illustrious military career Here is Alexandre Dumas who puts the afro in #AfroEuropean
'Wednesday Morning' by Dominican figurative painter, Hulda Guzmán, 2019
Salmon en croûte with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes ❤️ Its golden, flaky, homemade puff pastry is the star 🙌🏾 💕
Currently writing on Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, the first *person* to be awarded a PhD in Computer Science in the US. I came across a sketch she drew to illustrate the notion of a "thinly clad program." May I remind you all, she is a nun 😂
Upside-down blood orange, almond, and polenta cake... ..glazed with orange blossom water syrup.... It smells and tastes divine.
On this day (5 July) in 1687, Isaac Newton's 'Principia' was published. I recently treated myself to a copy in Latin; Like the 1st edition, it begins with Edmond Halley's Bromantic Ode 💕 "En tibi norma poli, & divae libramina molis..."
'Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something)' Kara Walker, 2017
Very much enjoyed speaking at Winchester Cathedral this week for their College of Canons Study Day.
David Hockney (9 July 1937 – 11 June 2026) Artist, painter and pop art maestro with some of his "iPad landscapes."
Recently saw the Henry Moore exhibition, "Monumental Nature", at Kew Gardens. Highly recommended especially on a sunny day
Treated myself to 'Regina: A new history of women and power' 🙌🏾 (by Prof Kate Williams)
Thinking of these two: Maria Agnesi (1718-1799), mathematician & theologian. 1st woman author of a maths textbook, 1st woman appointed as a maths prof at a University Laura Bassi (1711-1778), physicist. 1st woman to have a PhD in science, 1st female member of a scientific institution #WomeninSTEM
"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class, it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." Anna Julia Cooper
Today is the Feast of St. Bede the Venerable (673-735). Priest, poet, theologian, and "Father of English History." The only Englishman to be named Doctor of the Church, and the only Englishman admitted into Dante’s Paradiso. Enjoy my copy (1870) of his 'Ecclesiastical History.'
Today (24 May) in 997, "Father of modern geodesy", al-Biruni in Kath and mathematician, Abū al-Wafāʾ in Baghdad simultaneously observed a lunar eclipse. Using the observed timings, they subsequently calculated the difference in longitude between both cities.
Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States, was born OTD (May 7, 1845).
The Businessmen Jacob Lawrence, 1947 The piece is part of Lawrence's In the Heart of the Blackbelt series.
Happy New Oxford term! May all the days of the term be as gloriously sunny.
Group VI, The Evolution, No. 9 1908, Hilma af Klint (the first) abstractionist.
Thomas created a series inspired by the 1969 moon landing including 'Starry Night and the Astronauts.' Here is another: 'Apollo 12 Splash Down', 1970
Thomas, 81yo, probably in the same year (1972), at the opening of her exhibition at the Whitney - the first solo exhibition by an African American woman at the museum.
Starry Night and the Astronauts, 1972 by Alma Thomas who would have enjoyed Artemis II's mission to the moon.
Relatedly, my copy Conybeare's 'Augustine the African' recently arrived 🙌🏾