A David Wojnarowicz Documentary Honors the Gritty, Glorious Chaos of His Life
The most powerful aspect of the Whitney Museum’s 2018 retrospective ‘David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night’ was not hanging on a wall, but rather was vibrating through the air. In an empty room the artist’s voice consumed all who entered, its crushed granite timbre almost tactile to the ear.
Blue Song
St. Louis in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams
In 2011, the centennial of Tennessee Williams’s birth, events were held around the world honoring America’s greatest playwright. There were festivals, conferences, and exhibitions held in places closely associated with Williams’s life and career—New Orleans held major celebrations, as did New York, Key West, and Provincetown. But absolutely nothing was done to celebrate Williams’s life […]
The Passion Projects
Modernist Women, Intimate Archives, Unfinished Lives
It’s impossible, now, to think of modernism without thinking about gender, sexuality, and the diverse movers and shakers of the early twentieth century. But this was not always so. “The Passion Projects” examines biographical projects that modernist women writers undertook to resist the exclusion of their friends, colleagues, lovers, and companions from literary history. Many […]
Drawing from life
Dmitri Jackson, BFA ’08, draws the award-winning comic Blackwax Boulevard for music nerds — and everyone else, too.
Literary lifeline
Kris Kleindienst, AB ’79, is co-owner of Left Bank Books. During this year’s multiple crises, Kleindienst has found reading, and the community bookstores provide, more important than ever.
Tim Portlock
In this video, artist Tim Portlock, chair of undergraduate art at the Sam Fox School, discusses his use of visual effects and 3D animation software, his new exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the state of the American dream.
Designing for social change
Penina Acayo Laker, assistant professor of communication design, discusses the Sam Fox School’s new interdisciplinary minor in creative practice for social change.
‘At the edge of political crisis’
Poet, dramatist, translator and literary theorist John Dryden was a central figure in the politics and culture of Restoration England. In a new survey for Oxford University Press, WashU’s Steven Zwicker provides an authoritative overview of Dryden’s influential 40-year career.
Remembering Kim Massie
Blues singer Kim Massie, who died Oct. 12, was a beloved figure in St. Louis — a grandmother of six who held court downtown twice each week for more than two decades. Washington University’s Paige McGinley, who wrote about Massie in her 2014 book “Staging the Blues,” remembers the singer.
The Rest of the World
Stories
Long-time Baltimore City school teacher Adam Schwartz, MFA ’98, has drawn inspiration from his students for his short story collection The Rest of the World. All of the stories are set in Baltimore and grapple with “who we are and the ideals we claim to aspire to,” Schwartz says. The teens and young adults that […]
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