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Sastre, Alfonso

(Encyclopedia)Sastre, Alfonso älfōnˈsō säˈstrā [key], 1926–, Spanish dramatist, essayist, and critic, b. Madrid. Approaching his work from a Marxist and existentialist point of view, he explores the proble...

Salvian

(Encyclopedia)Salvian sălˈvēən [key], fl. 5th cent., Christian writer of Gaul. His Latin name was Salvianus. He was a monk and priest of Lérins (from c.424) and became a renowned preacher and teacher of rhetor...

picnic

(Encyclopedia)picnic, social gathering at which each participant generally brings food to be shared. The Picnic Society was formed in London early in the 19th cent. by a group of fashionable people for purposes of ...

Paducah

(Encyclopedia)Paducah pədyo͞oˈkə, –do͞oˈ– [key], city (1990 pop. 27,256), seat of McCracken co., SW Ky., on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Tennessee River; inc. as a city 1856. It is a tobacco market,...

Osborne, Thomas Mott

(Encyclopedia)Osborne, Thomas Mott, 1859–1926, American prison reformer, b. Auburn, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1884. As chairman (1913) of the state commission on prison reform he became a voluntary prisoner in the Aub...

Vincent, George Edgar

(Encyclopedia)Vincent, George Edgar, 1864–1941, American educator, organizer, and sociologist, b. Rockford, Ill., grad. Yale, 1885, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1896; son of Bishop John Heyl Vincent. He was associated...

Comte, Auguste

(Encyclopedia)Comte, Auguste ōgüstˈ kôNt [key], 1798–1857, French philosopher, founder of the school of philosophy known as positivism, educated in Paris. From 1818 to 1824 he contributed to the publications ...

Moravia, Alberto

(Encyclopedia)Moravia, Alberto älbĕrˈtō mōräˈvyä [key], 1907–90, Italian novelist, b. Alberto Pincherle; husband of Elsa Morante. Moravia is considered one of the foremost 20th-century Italian novelists. ...

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

(Encyclopedia)Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, in central Manhattan, New York City, between 62d and 66th streets W of Broadway. Lincoln Center is both a complex of buildings and the arts organizations that r...

Baudrillard, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Baudrillard, Jean, 1929–2007, French social theorist and cultural critic. Trained as a sociologist, he taught at the Univ. of Paris X, Nanterre, from 1966 to 1987 and was a prolific writer. Influenc...