Author: Liam Otten

Sowande’ Mustakeem, associate professor of history and of African and African American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed to the Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship Program.

For years after the World Trade Center collapsed, it became common to hear that “9/11 changed everything.” Yet the phrase is ripe for historical analysis, said Krister Knapp, teaching professor and minor adviser in history in Arts & Sciences.

Hugo Crosthwaite, whose stop-motion drawing animation “A Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chávez” won the National Portrait Gallery’s fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, will discuss his work Sept. 11 with curator Taína Caragol. The talk marks the beginning of the Sam Fox School’s fall Public Lecture Series, which will include 16 virtual and in-person events with nationally and internationally renowned artists, architects, designers and scholars.

The Black Rep launches its 45th season with a new production of “Sweat,” Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, in WashU’s Edison Theatre through Sept. 26.

The Sam Fox School’s James Harrison Steedman Fellowship in Architecture, a biennial research competition, invites early-career architects from around the world to explore how architecture can help to address today’s most pressing global challenges.

The Washington University Review of Philosophy, a new annual journal of professional philosophy edited by undergraduate students, has published its inaugural issue.

The swift fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban apparently signals the end of a nearly 20-year conflict. But is it, asks Krister Knapp, a teaching professor of history in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Or is this simply the beginning of the next chapter of U.S/Afghan entanglements?

Rick and Ilsa, “Casablanca’s” ill-fated lovers, will always have Paris. Uncle Sam will always have Kabul. And Saigon. And Baghdad. In the long-running tragedy of American foreign entanglements, Uncle Sam has become less a hapless romantic idealist and more a cynical “love ’em and leave ’em” serial abuser, says veteran filmmaker Richard Chapman.

Immigration, the fight for social justice, the lives of vulnerable populations. In “The Outwin: American Portraiture Today.” 45 contemporary artists — selected by jury from more than 2,600 entries — explore a wide range of artistic approaches while responding to current social and political contexts. Organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition is on view this fall at WashU’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

In conjunction with “The Outwin: American Portraiture Today,” the Mildred Kemper Art Museum will host a series of artist talks and other events throughout the fall.