Arts & Culture

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesNoga Landau as AgnesConservative versus liberal, political versus personal, father versus daughter. Such are the forces at play in civil disobedience, a world premiere drama by Carter Lewis, playwright-in-residence in Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. Commissioned by the PAD, the play centers on the relationship between Fred, a conservative justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and his daughter Marlee, a social activist and Manhattan bookstore owner.

The installation, on view Feb. 9-April 29, is the first thematic museum exhibition to examine how contemporary artists have dealt with the ramifications of German unification.

KWUR (90.3 FM), Washington University’s student-run radio station, will launch KWUR WEEK, a series of on-campus events, with a free concert by four of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s newest—and youngest—players. The program will include string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms.

The acclaimed fiction writer is the author of five short story collections, most recently “Twilight of the Super Heroes: Stories” (2006).

In 1973, while a doctoral student at Indiana University, Henry I. Schvey befriended the eminent Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). Now chair of Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, Schvey has written “Kokoschka: A Love Story,” an original drama about the artist’s torrid affair with Alma Mahler (1879-1964), the beautiful widow of composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

A group of three students is among the five final teams competing in the Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge. The winning team will be announced Feb. 2, with their ad airing during the big game Feb. 4.

KWUR (90.3 FM), Washington University’s student-run radio station, will launch KWUR WEEK, a series of on-campus events, with a free concert by four of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s newest—and youngest—players. The program will include string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms.

The great novelist, Nurrudin Farah, will be on the Washington University campus Feb. 13 and 14 to speak on “Political Islam and Clan in Present-day Somalia” for the Assembly Series, and to present a reading/discussion of his works for the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. Both events are free and open to the public.

Diana MichenerDeborah EisenbergAcclaimed fiction writer Deborah Eisenberg, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature, will read from her work Feb. 8 and host a Q&A session Feb. 15. Eisenberg is the author of five short story collections, most recently Twilight of the Super Heroes: Stories (2006).

Rudolf HerzRudolf Herz, *Dachau, Museumsbilder, 1976/80 (Museum Photographs, Dachau, 1976/80)*The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a roundtable discussion with three prominent German artists — Rudolf Herz, Christian Jankowski and Via Lewandowsky — at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9. All three artists are featured in the new exhibition, Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, which opens later that evening. Also taking part will be three contemporary scholars and critics: Diedrich Diederichsen, Sabine Eckmann and Lutz Koepnick.