There’s more than one way to tailgate.
A lecture on financing urban development in 17th century Rome was delivered to a small crowd in the Carolyn P. Brown University Center Ballroom two hours before Saturday’s football game against UT Chattanooga. The audience was treated to historical findings pertaining to a failed bond scheme to redevelop the traditional heart of Rome at the Piazza Colonna.
Dorothy Habel, the evening’s speaker and director of the School of Art, explained that while the bond scheme may have failed, it was an “ingenious” attempt to shift the financial burden away from Romans and towards potential investors through the forward concept of selling debt.
“This little proposal posed new questions for all Romans,” Habel said of the proposal, which offered a new alternative to the long-established tradition of local ownership of public property. “Who would own the city’s real-estate? Bankers and investors from Genoa, Spanish speculators or the Romans who paid a direct tax?”
While Habel finds interest in history and architecture, she also sees modern parallels in her work to understanding how foreign investment can affect ownership of a community.
“It’s that kind of organization (of foreign investors) that can come in and say to a local population ‘Who do you want invested in the development of Knoxville?'” Habel said. “Is it the people who pay taxes here who really should be involved in these kinds of choices, or do you want developers coming in from the outside?”
Since 1989, the Pre Game Showcase has offered a variety of lectures aimed at educating UT’s tailgating population of the university’s academic prestige. Partially supported by the athletic department, the lectures take place two hours before every home game in Room 213 of the university center and cover all topics ranging from Shakespeare to physics to astronomy.
Theresa Lee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, hopes the showcase will offer “a moment of sanity” just before the chaos of Volunteer football. Before introducing the speaker, Lee made clear the importance one should place on the study of the past even in the midst of homecoming.
“People often wonder why we bother to study history,” Lee said. “It does tell us something about how we think about the world today, how did we get to where we are now.”
Lynn Champion, director of the Office of Academic Outreach and Communications and creator of the showcase, sees the event as an opportunity to spotlight the university’s academics before the Vols take the field.
“Tennesseans always take pride in UT’s accomplishments in athletics,” Champion said. “We want to give them reason to be proud of UT’s academic accomplishments as well.”
Professor Gordon Burghardt will deliver a lecture on animal behavior two hours before kickoff against Alabama Oct. 25.
