Humanities & Society

Widespread social problems are nothing new, yet solutions today require a different, more innovative approach. A new book, Transdisciplinary Public Health: Research, Education, and Practice (edited by Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, the Joyce Wood Professor at the Brown School and associate dean for research, and Timothy McBride, PhD, professor) aims to fill that void by laying out a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving.​

Through a special partnership between the city of St. Louis and Washington University, four winning demonstration projects are testing innovative, sustainable solutions — including sunflower plantings, a compact restaurant, a chess park and a modern agricultural model — to solve the problem of vacant land in the city. Click to watch a video of the Sunflower+ Project, led by Don Koster, senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

The Brown School of Washington University in St. Louis is taking a leadership role in a new association that brings together schools and programs of public health. The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), launched Aug. 1, represents schools and programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The organization is the successor to the Association of Schools of Public Health.

Administrative law expert Ronald M. Levin, JD, recently was invited to testify before Congress on concerns about the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act. Levin, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has taught and written about administrative law for more than 30 years. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee endorsed the legislation on July 24, sending it to the full House.

Missouri has been held out as a model for juvenile corrections programs, but the court system that puts young people into these programs is in crisis, finds a recent report by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC). “Many young people in Missouri wind up having to defend themselves in our juvenile courts – and sometimes from behind bars,” says Mae C. Quinn, JD, professor of law and co-director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University in St. Louis.

Spotify. Pandora. iTunes. YouTube. We are constantly bombarded with a seemingly limitless amount of new music in our daily lives. But why do we keep coming back to that one song or album we couldn’t get enough of in college? New research from Washington University’s Olin Business School shows that although consumers say they prefer to listen to unfamiliar music, their choices actually belie that preference.

Automatic federal budget cuts, known as the sequester, which began March 1, have had minimal impact on federal regulatory agencies, finds a new report on the U.S. budget for this fiscal year and next. The on-budget cost of regulation is detailed in a new report, Sequester’s Impact on Regulatory Agencies Modest: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014, published by Washington University in St. Louis and George Washington University.

An Olin Library exhibition, titled William H. Gass: The Soul Inside the Sentence, ends July 31. But a newly launched digital version of the exhibit allows for ongoing exploration of a wide-ranging selection of the esteemed writer’s drafts, interviews, photographs and more. A gallery talk will be held at 9 a.m. Friday, July 19, in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room, providing a guided tour of the in-person exhibition.

More than 60 Washington University in St. Louis faculty, staff, students and alumni marched in the 2013 Pride STL LGBT parade June 30 in downtown St. Louis. The parade was part of St. Louis PrideFest, a weekend of events and programs designed to foster an understanding and tolerance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Successful prosecutions of crimes against humanity must occur at the International Criminal Court if it is to succeed in its mandate to punish perpetrators of atrocities and deter others from committing such crimes, argues Leila Sadat, JD, international law expert and WUSTL professor. Her research, arguments and analysis are published in the latest issue of the American Journal of International Law.