Author: Liam Otten

Inflation is high. Democracy is faltering. Political gangs brawl in the street. But inside the world of “Cabaret,” trouble can be left behind. At least for a while. The Performing Arts Department presents the show Oct. 27 to Nov. 5 in Edison Theatre.

Jeannette Cooperman and John Griswold, both staff writers for The Common Reader, the journal of essays and ideas housed at Washington University, have been named to the Notable Essays list in “Best American Essays 2023.”

“Object Lessons,” the long-running series of pocket-sized books that explores the secret lives of ordinary things, is now based in the Program in Public Scholarship in Arts & Sciences.

Mary Ruppert-Stroescu, an associate professor and coordinator of the Sam Fox School’s Fashion Design program, will discuss the current state of sustainable fashion Oct. 27 as part of TEDx St. Louis Women: Two Steps Forward.

Artist William Villalongo and data scientist Shraddha Ramani will discuss their ongoing collaboration “Printing Black America: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits in the 21st Century” Oct. 24. As the Sam Fox School’s 2023-24 Arthur and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artists, the pair will create new works for the series based on St. Louis.

In ‘Retro Game Design,’ Ian Bogost, the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor and director of film and media studies in Arts & Sciences, introduces students to the history, aesthetics and idiosyncratic technology of the iconic Atari 2600 gaming console.

Shopping. Driving. Parenting. Eating out. Working out. Today, sources of adventure are as limitless as a marketer’s imagination. No activity is too mundane, no product too crass, no invocation too preposterous. In Adventure: An Argument for Limits, Christopher Schaberg grapples with classical conceptions of adventure, their 21st-century simulacra, and the earnest question: What constitutes adventure today?

Over the last two years, Carmon Colangelo, a celebrated printmaker and dean of WashU’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has worked with the new 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis to create artworks for all 173 guest rooms.

Todd Decker, a professor of musicology in Arts & Sciences, edited a special issue of American Music, marking the journal’s 40th anniversary.

Three WashU playwrights — Maddy Klass, Bela Marcus and Charlie Meyers — will present world-premiere staged readings as part of the 2023 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival.