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Cocceius, Johannes

(Encyclopedia)Cocceius, Johannes kŏksēˈəs [key], 1603–69, German theologian, whose surname was originally Koch or Koken. Born in Bremen, he went to Holland, where he was professor at Francken and Leiden. He p...

Harper, William Rainey

(Encyclopedia)Harper, William Rainey, 1856–1906, American educator and Hebrew scholar, b. New Concord, Ohio, grad. Muskingum College, 1870, Ph.D. Yale, 1875. The author of many texts on Hebrew language and litera...

Garborg, Arne

(Encyclopedia)Garborg, Arne ärˈnə gärˈbo͝org [key], 1851–1924, Norwegian writer of the naturalistic school. He founded the weekly Fedraheim (1877), in which he urged reforms in many spheres—political, soc...

Elkin, Stanley

(Encyclopedia)Elkin, Stanley, 1930–95, American writer, b. New York City. An offbeat fiction writer, Elkin had a gift for black comedy, fantastic imagery, bizarre situations, and a kind of lyrical bleakness, all ...

National Defense Education Act

(Encyclopedia)National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate ...

Moabite stone

(Encyclopedia)Moabite stone mōˈəbītˌ [key], ancient slab of stone erected in 850 b.c. by King Mesha of Moab; it contains a long inscription commemorating a victory in his revolt against Israel. It was discover...

Meléndez Valdés, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Meléndez Valdés, Juan hwän mālānˈdāth väldāsˈ [key], 1754–1817, Spanish neoclassic poet. He studied classics and law and later taught humanities at Salamanca. After much political vacillat...

Marler, Peter Robert

(Encyclopedia)Marler, Peter Robert, 1928–2014, British ethologist, b. Slough, England, Ph.D University College London, 1952, and Cambridge, 1954. At Cambridge he was introduced to the sonic spectrograph, an instr...

Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović

(Encyclopedia)Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović käˈräjĭch [key], 1787–1864, Serbian philologist and folklorist, of Moldavian descent. During his lifetime Karadžić published 10 volumes of Serbian folk poetry. He ...

Rivera, José Eustasio

(Encyclopedia)Rivera, José Eustasio rēvāˈrä [key], 1889–1928, Colombian novelist. Rivera served on the commission to fix the Venezuelan boundary deep in the rain forest of the Amazon basin. The jungle becam...