Category Archives: Far Away Places

On the evening of April 16 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, WKU Libraries’ Far Away Places Series featured Dr. Michael Trapasso from the Department of Geography and Geology at WKU. Trapasso provided a unique and fascinating look at retracing the “Viking Voyages.” Many WKU faculty and students as well as local community members attended the lecture.

Since earning a PhD in climatology Michael has taught a variety of classes at WKU, served as Director of the College Heights Weather Station and hosted “Up in the Air” Thursday mornings on WKYU-FM. He’s one of Western’s most traveled scholars having set foot on every continent and dipped his body in every ocean. His “Viking Mission’ began with a trip to Norway in 1999 where he began to research their ships and their voyages. He continued in 2003 with a visit to Iceland which was originally settled and populated by Vikings. In 2004 he returned for a second visit and traveled to Greenland. Late that summer, Trapasso visited Newfoundland where the Vikings established their first village on North American soil. Mission accomplished!

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WKU Libraries presented Joseph Trafton, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at WKU, who spoke on “The Dead Sea Scrolls” as part of the “Far Away Places Series” at Barnes & Noble Bookstore (1680 Campbell Lane) on the evening of March 19th, 2009.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They have been called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.

Trafton, who has a M.T.S. and Th.M. from the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a PhD from Duke, was first introduced to the Dead Sea Scrolls during his masters work in a course on the Jewish setting of the New Testament. He continued studying about the scrolls at Duke. When his adviser moved to the Princeton Theological Seminary, Joe was invited to be part of an international team of scholars assembled to edit and translate the scrolls called the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project. He was assigned five fragmentary scrolls, the first of which was published in 2002. As part of his research he has traveled to Israel and visited Qumran, the archaeological site connected with the scrolls. At WKU he teaches an undergraduate course on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In addition to this work on the “scrolls” Joe is the author of two books, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon published by the Society of Biblical Literature, and Reading Revelation: A Literary and Theological Commentary published in the “Reading the New Testament Series” by Smyth & Helwys in 2005. One reviewer called it “a balanced approach to Revelation that makes good use of contemporary scholarship.”

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Dr. Michael Trapasso, professor in the Geography and Geology Department at WKU, talked about Easter Island in the University Libraries’ Faraway Places Series on Thursday, March 20th at Barnes & Noble.

Easter Island has long been known as an Island of Mystery. In reality, scientists have studied this island and its inhabitants for decades and much of the mystery has been cleared away. If you missed out and are interested in learning about the truth behind the mysteries, the following will help you revisit Dr. Trapasso’s talk.

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