Arts & Culture

Harriet Stone, Ph.D., professor of romance languages & comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, will speak on “Objects for the Table: Descartes, La Bruyère and Dutch Golden Age Painters” at 4:10 p.m., Thursday, March 2. The talk, part of the Center for the Humanities’ Faculty Fellows Lecture and Workshop Series, will address the status of objects in science, literature and art as part of an inquiry into forms of knowledge that ground 17th-century European culture.

Poet Linda Gregerson, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will present a pair of events Feb. 23 and March 2. Gregerson is the author of three collections of poetry: Fire in the Conservatory (1982), The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep (1996) and Waterborne (2002).

Courtesy photoMarjorie GarberGleaned from her popular lectures covering three decades, Garber’s 2004 book, Shakespeare After All, offers fresh meditations on the Bard’s plays in an erudite and entertaining fashion. She is a professor of English and director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in Edison Theatre.

Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*Much Ado About Nothing*Rapier wit and cutting observation; lies, laughter and love, with a stiff dose of betrayal. Such is the emotional arsenal deployed for Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare’s strategic guide to the “merry war” between the sexes. This month, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present Much Ado as its spring Mainstage production.

Conceptual artist and African-American activist damali ayo will give a presentation for the Washington University Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Wednesday, February 15 in Graham Chapel. The event, co-sponsored by Mortarboard and the Social Justice Center, is a multimedia presentation that interacts directly with the audience to address issues of racial injustice.

She’s the first of six speakers appearing this spring as part of The Center for the Humanities Faculty Fellows’ Lecture and Workshop Series.

The talk is part of “Unsettled Ground: Nature, Landscape and Ecology Now!” a series of lectures, panel discussions, artistic interventions and workshops.

Their project investigates the relationship between power and self-presentation by asking women to respond to a seemingly simple question.

Dhomhnaill has been hailed by the Irish Literary Supplement as the “most acclaimed Gaelic poet of the century”; Akins is the author of four novels.

Fiction writer Ellen Akins will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, for the Writing Program Reading Series. Akins is the author of four novels, including “Home Movie: A Novel” (1988), “Little Women: A Novel” (1990) and “Hometown Brew” (1998), as well as a collection of short stories, “World Like a Knife” (1991).