Dublin, University of or Trinity College Oldest university in Ire¬ land, founded in 1592 by Elizabeth I and endowed by the city of Dublin. Trinity was originally intended to be the first of many constituent colleges of the university, but no others were established, and the two names became interchangeable. The full benefits of the university (degrees, fel¬ lowships, scholarships, etc.) were for many years limited to Anglicans, but in 1873 all religious requirements were eliminated. The university has faculties of arts (humanities and letters), sciences, business, economic and social studies, engineering and systems sciences, health sciences, and graduate studies. The library contains many illuminated manuscripts, including the Book of Kells.
Dublin Bay prawn See scampi
Dubnow Vdub-.noA, Simon Markovich (b. Sept. 10, 1860, Mstislavl, Russia—d. December 1941, Riga, Latvia, U.S.S.R.) Russian Jewish historian. Largely self-educated, he gained notice as a scholar of Jewish history before the Bolshevik Revolution prompted him to leave his native Russia for Germany in 1922. He emphasized the cultural autonomy of the Jewish people throughout history, rejecting assimilation but also
opposing Zionism as unrealistic. His best-known works were History of the Jews (10 vol., 1925-30) and History of Hasidism (1931). He fled Nazi Germany in 1933 for Riga, Latvia, where he was eventually killed by the Germans.
Dubos \du-'boz\, Rene (Jules) (b. Feb. 20, 1901, Saint-Brice, France—d. Feb. 20, 1982, New York, N.Y., U.S.) French-born U.S. micro¬ biologist and environmentalist. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1924 and earned his Ph.D. from Rutgers University. His pioneering research in iso¬ lating antibacterial substances from soil microorganisms led to the dis¬ covery of major antibiotics. He researched and wrote on antibiotics, acquired immunity, tuberculosis, and the bacteria of the gastrointestinal tract. In his later years his interest shifted to the relationship of humans to the natural environment; his So Human an Animal (1968) won the Pulitzer Prize. See also Selman Waksman.
Dubrovnik Vdu-.brov-nikV Port city (pop., 2001: 43,770), Croatia. It is situated on the southern Adriatic coast southwest of Sarajevo. Founded in the 7th century by Roman refugees, it came under Byzantine rule after the fall of Rome. It acknowledged Venetian suzerainty (1205-1358) but remained largely independent and became a mercantile power. It was known as a centre of Slavic literature and art in the 15th—17th centuries. Subjugated by Napoleon I in 1808, it was passed to Austria in 1815 and to Yugoslavia in 1918. It was bombed by the Serbs (1991-92) during Croatia’s struggle for independence. The old city, enclosed by medieval city walls, contains 14th-century convents and the 15th-century Rector’s Palace.
Dubuffet VdlE-btE-'feX, Jean (-Philippe-Arthur) (b. July 31, 1901, Le Havre, Fr.—d. May 12, 1985, Paris) French painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He studied painting in Paris, but in 1929 he began making a living as a wine merchant. When he returned to art full-time in the early 1940s, he became a leading artist in Paris and proponent of art brut. He executed crude images incised into rough impasto surfaces made of mate¬ rials such as sand, plaster, tar, gravel, and ashes bound with varnish and glue, and sculptural works made of junk materials; their unfinished appearance provoked public outrage. In the 1960s he experimented with musical composition and architectural environments, and in his later years he produced large fibreglass sculptures for public spaces.
Duby, Georges (b. Oct. 7, 1919, Paris, France—d. Dec. 3, 1996, near Aix-en-Provence) Prolific and influential French historian. After receiv¬ ing a doctorate in history at the Sorbonne (University of Paris) in 1950, Duby taught at the university of Marseilles-Aix-en-Provence. In 1970 he moved to the College de France, where he served as professor of the his¬ tory of medieval societies until 1993. The most influential of his many works was his dissertation, La Societe awe Xle et Xlle siecles dans la region maconnaise (“Society in the Maconnais in the 11th and 12th Cen¬ turies”), published in 1953, which helped shape a new understanding of medieval society. He also served as director of the Societe d’Edition de Programmes de Television, a public television production agency. He was elected to the Academie Fran£aise in 1987.
Duccio \'dut-cho\ (di Buoninsegna) (b. 13th century, Siena, Repub¬ lic of Siena—d. c. 1318, Siena?) Italian painter. Little is known of his life, but several commission records survive, as well as two documented works, the Rucellai Madonna for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella (1285) and the famous Maesta altarpiece for Siena Cathedral (1308-11); both represent landmarks in the history of Italian painting. His style reflected the influence of Cimabue and Byzantine art, though he intro¬ duced a warmth of human feeling that was comparable to that of Giotto in Florentine painting. He was the leading painter in Siena, one of Italy’s most vital artistic centres in the Middle Ages.
Duchamp Ndui-'shaA, Marcel (b. July 28, 1887, Blainville, France—d. Oct. 2, 1968, Neuilly) French artist and art innovator. In 1913 he caused a sensation at the Armory Show with his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), which combined the principles of Cubism and Futurism. His irreverence for conventional aesthetic standards then led him to devise his famous ready-mades: in 1913 he exhibited Bicycle Wheel, which was simply an ordinary bicycle wheel displayed as a work of art, and in 1917 he exhibited a urinal he entitled Fountain. Intended as a deri¬ sive gesture against the excessive importance attached to works of art, the ready-mades ushered in an era when contemporary art became in itself a mixture of creation and criticism. In Paris in 1919 he established contact with the Dada group of artists, whose nihilistic ideas he had anticipated. During this period he exhibited a photograph of the Mona Lisa with a
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moustache and goatee added, a gesture that expressed the Dadaists’ scorn for the art of the past. He greatly influenced the Surrealists, and his atti¬ tude toward art and society led to Pop art and other modern and post¬ modern movements. A legend in his lifetime, he is considered one of the leading spirits of 20th-century art.
duck Any of various relatively small, short-necked, large-billed water- fowl (several genera in subfamily Anatinae, family Anatidae). The legs of true ducks (Anatinae) are placed rearward (as are those of swans), resulting in a waddling gait. Most true ducks differ from swans and true geese (see goose) in that male ducks molt twice annually, females lay large clutches of smooth-shelled eggs, and both sexes have overlapping scales on the skin of the leg and exhibit some differences between sexes in plumage and in call. All true ducks except shelducks and sea ducks (see diving duck) mature in the first year and pair only for the season. They are generally divided into three groups: perching ducks, dabbling ducks, and diving ducks. The whistling duck species, also called tree ducks, are not true ducks but are more closely related to geese and swans.
duck hawk See peregrine falcon duckbill See platypus
ductility Capacity of a material to deform permanently (e.g., stretch, bend, or spread) in response to stress. Most common steels, for example, are quite ductile and hence can accommodate local stress concentrations. Brittle materials, such as glass, cannot accommodate concentrations of stress because they lack ductility, and therefore fracture easily. When a material specimen is stressed, it deforms elastically (see elasticity) at first; above a certain deformation, called the elastic limit, deformation becomes permanent.