Arts & Culture

The Center for the Humanities and Program in Film & Media Studies will host the Eighth Annual Children’s Film Showcase Nov. 18, 19 and 20. Titled “An Exploration of Children’s Films and Their Audiences,” the showcase is presented in conjunction with Cinema St. Louis, as part of the 20th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival. In all, the Children’s Film Showcase will feature 11 screenings as well as lectures and Q&A sessions with several of the filmmakers.

Washington University’s Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has been ranked 4th in the nation, according to DesignIntelligence, which publishes an annual guide to America’s Best Architecture and Design Schools. The 13th annual report polled leaders from 277 architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design and interior design firms about which programs have, over the last five years, best prepared students for professional practice.

The city of the future is a utopian confection of luxurious modernist skyscrapers, except when it’s a hidden nightmare of exploited subterranean workers, a comedy of anonymous office spaces or a collection of geodesic domes orbiting Saturn. Throughout the 20th century, filmmakers have explored the ever-quickening pace of technological development through visionary images of both social and architectural space. In December, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will screen three such films as part of its Cities of the Future Film Series.

Is it a comic book? A radio play? A conquering sludge monster from outer space? Yes! The Intergalactic Nemesis: Live-Action Graphic Novel is all that and more. Follow intrepid reporter Molly Sloan, her trusty assistant Timmy Mendez and mysterious librarian Ben Wilcott as they race against time and fight to save humanity from impending invasion. The resistance begins at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 18 and 19, as part of the Edison Ovations Series at Washington University.

“Well, Anatol,” says Max, “I envy you.” And what’s not to envy? Anatol is young, rich and good-looking, blessed with charm and taste and a hedonistic nature, unencumbered by family, scruple or employment. Later this month, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department will present an original adaptation of Anatol, Arthur Schnitzler’s strikingly modern deconstruction of a dapper but self-deluding would-be Don Juan.

In American Romances, her 13th book and first collection of essays, Rebecca Brown bobs and weaves though 300 years of American history, mixing social and literary critique with pop culture, autobiography, playful fantasy and misremembered movie plots, riffing on the stories we tell and the stories we don’t. At 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, Brown will read from her work as part of The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series.

Distinguished Visiting Scholar Jock Soto leads a master class for advanced ballet students Oct. 26 in the Annelise Mertz Dance Studio in Mallinckrodt Student Center. Soto, an internationally acclaimed former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, was in residence with the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences Oct. 23-30.

Ekphrasis is the literary description of a visual work of art. It is also a key apporach underlying the poetry of Cole Swensen, a former National Book Award nominee and Guggenheim Fellow. In each of her 14 collections, Swensen selects a single theme or subject, generally drawn from the arts or history, then explores it through her own writing process. At 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, the poet will read from her work for as part of the Writing Program’s fall Reading Series.

From gleaming skyscrapers to humble market stalls, modern India is a world of crowded contradiction, a world of iPhones and ancient gods, of rickshaws and SUVs, of causal corruption and slumdog millionaires. In The Guru of Chai —  presented Nov. 4 and 5 as part of the Edison Ovations Series — Jacob Rajan, co-founder of New Zealand’s India Ink Theatre Company, gives voice to the world’s largest democracy through a series of indelible characters: the poor chaiwallah (tea seller), the lovelorn policeman, the protection racketeers, the abandoned girl whose singing stops crowds in their tracks.

A string quartet from the St. Louis Symphony will join pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, and mezzo-soprano Debra Hillabrand, teacher of applied music, for a free concert featuring the music of Johannes Brahms (1833-97). Sponsored by the Department of Music and the St. Louis Symphony Community Partnership program, the performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.