Arts & Culture

Speakers covering such diverse subjects as science, entrepreneurship, film and mathematics will take center stage during the Spring 2009 Assembly Series.

Beverly Fishman, head of the painting department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22.

Courtesy photo*Wonderboy*Superpowers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.Take Wonderboy, the new collaboration by San Francisco choreographer Joe Goode and master puppeteer Basil Twist. Blessed with uncanny empathy and superhuman sensitivity, the title character is virtually paralyzed by everyday sights and sounds — the clash of bells, the glare of sunlight, a young man passing on the street. Yet Wonderboy is not without resources, nor without courage. In February the Joe Goode Performance Group will bring its three-foot-tall wooden hero to St. Louis as part of the Edison Theatre OVATIONS Series.

Beverly Fishman, head of the painting department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22.

Poet Carolyn Forché, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Jan. 22. The talk — part of The Writing Program Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Room 201, […]

Photo by Ron Steele”Masked Marvels & Wondertales,” the eye-popping one-man variety show by Michael Cooper, launches Edison’s ovations for young people series and takes place at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 17, at the 560 Music Center.

Gerald EarlyThose looking to learn more about president Barack Obama and gain an introduction to African-American writing in the process are advised to check out two new books — “Best African American Fiction: 2009” and “Best African American Essays: 2009.” Edited by Gerald L. Early, Ph.D., the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and director of the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, the two volumes are the first in the “Best of…” series to exclusively showcase African-American writing. They include writing by and about Obama.

First Stage Competition entry, 1947The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial — popularly known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch — is the tallest monument in the United States and an icon of modern architecture, its great steel arc embodying strength, elegance and simplicity. Yet creation of the Arch was anything but simple. This spring the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will explore that complex history with the exhibition and symposium On the Riverfront: St. Louis and The Gateway Arch. Held in conjunction with Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, On the Riverfront will focus on the people, events and conditions that culminated in the 1947-48 competition from which Eero Saarinen’s design was chosen, as well as the monument’s subsequent construction and its place in American architecture.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoWUSTL biomedical engineers Younan Xia (left) and Lihong Wang examine the photoacoustic tomography machine (PAT) in Wang’s Whitaker Building laboratory.Information obtained from a new application of photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is worth its weight in gold to breast cancer patients. For the first time, Lihong Wang, Ph.D., Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, with a joint appointment in Radiology, and Younan Xia, Ph.D., James M. McKelvey Professor in Biomedical Engineering, with a joint appointment in chemistry in Arts & Sciences, both at Washington University in St. Louis, have used gold nanocages to map sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) in a rat noninvasively using PAT.

*The Spy*The price of glory. The brutality of war. A lawless free-fire zone brimming with loyalists and revolutionaries. In February two powerhouses of American theater, The Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company, will join forces to present a pair of adventure classics at Washington University’s Edison Theatre. On Feb. 13 director Davis McCallum will lead a cast of 12 in William Shakespeare’s epic King Henry V. Then, on Feb. 14, John Miller-Stephany, associate artistic director of the Guthrie, will direct Jeffrey Hatcher’s world premiere adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy.