Arts & Culture

Within a month of publishing his notorious collection “Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil),” (1857), the French poet Charles Baudelaire was charged with insulting public decency and ordered to remove six works from subsequent editions. Yet Baudelaire’s poems, which center on themes of eroticism and mortality, would influence generations of writers, from Arthur Rimbaud […]

The phrase “modern art” has been widely used for more than a century. In that time, it has become so associated with historical movements — from cubism and surrealism to abstract expressionism, pop and conceptual art — that it has ceased to describe the many new and different forms being made today. So argues Terry […]

Art historian Terry Smith will discuss “Contemporary Art and the Contemporaneity Question” at Kemper Monday, Oct. 13.

Harold Blumenfeld, professor emeritus in the Department of Music, has recorded “Vers Sataniques (Satanic Verse),” a major new piece that will be featured as part of a mixed media concert Oct. 13.

Novelist John Brandon, a 2001 MFA graduate of Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16. Brandon is the author of Arkansas, a darkly comic novel about rural drug-distribution, which was published last spring by McSweeney’s Rectangulars imprint.

Novelist Zachary Lazar, author of “Sway” (2008) and “Aaron Approximately” (1998), will read from his work 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The talk — part of The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Room […]

Though no scores are included in his published works, William Shakespeare frequently employed music in his plays, writing poems for new songs and adopting existing ballads. Numerous characters allude to then-popular tunes while composers such as Thomas Morley and Robert Johnson also contributed original compositions. Next week, the acclaimed period music trio Ensemble Chaconne, joined […]

The acclaimed period music trio Ensemble Chaconne, joined by mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, will present a concert of songs associated with the work of William Shakespeare at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6, in Edison Theatre.

Novelist Zachary Lazar, author of “Sway” (2008) and “Aaron Approximately” (1998), will read from his work 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

Trey McIntyre, one of today’s most innovative and sought-after choreographers, will make his St. Louis debut with the Trey McIntyre Project at 8 p.m. Oct. 10 and Oct. 11 as part of the Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series.