Author: Liam Otten

Alla MaileyMichael PollanCelebrated food writer Michael Pollan will receive the Washington University Humanities Medal as part of “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” the university’s seventh annual faculty book colloquium. The biannual award is given to a distinguished scholar, writer or artist whose career merits special recognition for excellence and courage.

Acclaimed author Steve Stern, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature, will present a pair of events Nov. 13 and 20. Over the last quarter-century Stern has earned critical accolades for creating colorful characters that The New York Times says mine “the rich terrain of Eastern European Jewry.” His most recent novel is The Angel of Forgetfulness (2005), which the Washington Post praised as “touching, funny and dizzying.”

Mario LangElisabeth HarnikThe Jazz at Holmes Series will present two internationally reknowned musicians in free concerts Nov. 6 and 13. The Nov. 6 performance will feature Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik, perhaps best known for her piano improvisations. On Nov. 13 Jazz at Holmes will welcome legendary New York saxophonist David Liebman and his Quartet.

Gwen Bennett, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history and archaeology in Arts & Sciences, has received a three-year, $335,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation Initiative on East and Southeast Asian Archaeology and Early History. The grant will allow Bennett to expand her ongoing fieldwork into the ancient landscape and settlements of the Chengdu Plain […]

Eight faculty from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present a showcase recital in conjunction with the Missouri Music Teachers Association’s (MMTA) annual instrumental and vocal competitive auditions. The annual competition — hosted this year by the Department of Music — will take place Nov. 6 to 9 in the department’s 560 Music Center. The faculty concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8.

Courtesy photoOlympia DukakisLegendary actress Olympia Dukakis, the Academy Award-winning star of Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias, will present a concert reading of Rose, her hit one-woman Broadway show, as part of the Edison Theatre OVATIONS Series. Written by celebrated playwright Martin Sherman, the drama centers on an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor whose epic story spans the history of the 20th century.

Rendering of renovated children’s theater.A team of six graduate and undergraduate architecture students — led by graduate teaching assistant Ellen Leuenberger and including Denny Burke, Alexander Harner, Michael Heller, Rachel Kerr and June Kim — has won the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Community Service Competition. The competition, which includes a $300 cash prize, centered on an abandoned 8,000-square-foot children’s theater located on the campus of St. Francis de Sales church, 2653 Ohio Ave. (63118), popularly known as “the Cathedral of South St. Louis.”

Courtesy PhotoThis fall, five teams of architecture students have worked to create redevelopment plans for an abandoned children’s theater located on the campus of a south St. Louis historic church.

Photo by David MarchantAcclaimed choreographer Liz Lerman (center), founding artistic director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and a visiting artist in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, and senior Jackie Dodd (far right), work with residents at the Gladys & Henry Crown Center for Senior Living in University City.

Poet Jean Valentine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23.