Author: Liam Otten

The Brooksfields are determined to take a trip. Nothing will stop them — not the blizzard, not the mistress, not even the drug dealers. In “Florida,” Lucas Marschke recounts a dysfunctional family vacation for the ages. This weekend, “Florida” will receive its world-premiere staged reading at Washington University in St. Louis as part of the annual A.E. Hotchner New Play Festival.

In “Persistence of Memory,” choreographer Ting-Ting Chang explores the convergence of dance and painting through works inspired by the art of Salvador Dali and the writings of Sigmund Freud.

Over the past four years, The Divided City, an urban humanities initiative at Washington University in St. Louis, has supported dozens of projects exploring the effects of spatial segregation. This fall, the university will launch a second phase, The Divided City 2022, thanks to a $1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is a thrilling adventure but also a prescient guidebook to the moral and ethical dilemmas of 20th and 21st century medicine. On Sept. 28-30, Washington University in St. Louis’ School of Medicine and College of Arts & Sciences will present a three-day forum exploring Shelley’s novel through the lens of contemporary medical practice.

The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis welcome Dave Hullfish Bailey as their 2018-19 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow. Designed to promote the creation and exhibition of contemporary art as well as the teaching of contemporary art principles, the fellowship consists of two month-long residencies, during which Bailey will lead studios in the Sam Fox School while preparing an exhibition for the museum’s Currents series.

“Nike is turning towards a younger, more diverse America because they’ve calculated that Trumpian claims about compulsory patriotism and black athletic obedience will not win out,” says Noah Cohan, who studies sports narratives and fandom at Washington University in St. Louis.

In “The Cabinet of Ordinary Affairs,” the Sam Fox School’s Cheryl Wassenaar and Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer explore the ways our distinct inner voices combine to create a “bureaucracy of the mind.”

Anika Walke, assistant professor of history in Arts & Sciences, is co-recipient of a 2018 Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to support “The Holocaust Ghettos Project” from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

British architect Sir David Adjaye, who led design of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, will receive the 2018 International Humanities Prize from Washington University in St. Louis. The $25,000 prize is among the largest U.S. awards in the humanities.

Celebrated composer Darwin Aquino will join the Washington University Symphony Orchestra as conductor-in-residence beginning with the 2018-19 season.