Humanities & Society

Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, recently received the 2011 Book of the Year Award from the American National Section of L’Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) for Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity.

Remarks made during the recently settled NBA lockout brought the subject of race and sports back into the forefront. Gerald Early’s A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports, is a series of essays that give historical perspective to the issue of race and sports through distinct personalities such as baseball’s Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood and NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb. Early, PhD, is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

A gingerbread version of WUSTL’s iconic Brookings Hall on display Nov. 30 in the Bear’s Den on the South 40. WUSTL Dining Services made the Gingerbread Brookings in celebration of the holiday season with more than 30 lbs. of gingerbread dough, 25 lbs. of icing and nearly 10 lbs. of candy.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, is the new director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging effective Jan. 1, announced Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Morrow-Howell succeeds John C. Morris, MD, the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology and director of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center, the Memory and Aging Project and the Memory Diagnostic Center at WUSTL. 

Lingchei Letty Chen, PhD, associate professor of modern Chinese language and literature in Arts & Sciences, expresses creativity through writing, teaching, organizing international conferences or, most recently, helping launch the university’s new study abroad program at Fudan University in Shanghai as the program’s academic adviser. 

Carl Phillips, professor of English in Arts & Sciences and a 2011 finalist for the National Book Award in poetry, reads from his 2011 book Double Shadow during the National Book Awards’ Finalist Reading Nov. 15. Double Shadow — published this past March — is Phillips’ 11th collection of poetry and earned Phillips a fourth nomination for the National Book Award in poetry.

The Supreme Court will hear several states’ legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the court — in late June 2012 — will deliver a momentous statement about the ever-contentious constitutional balance between federal and state power. “The key element of the states’ lawsuits targets the act’s requirement that everyone in the country must purchase commercial health insurance,” says constitutional law expert Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Many websites and magazine articles offer ideas about how to lose weight over the holidays, but Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, says that people need to realize that weight loss during this time generally isn’t realistic. A little advance planning can ensure that, while people may not actually lose weight, they can keep weight gain in check.

Veterans are returning home to an abysmal economy and a tough job market. “After World War II, employers used to snap up veterans because of their tremendous skills sets gained in the service — whether that be technical, leadership, or other job specific aptitudes,” says Monica Matthieu, PhD, research assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on veteran mental health. “But now, veterans are facing higher unemployment rates than civilians as employers may be concerned about veterans’ struggle with the mental and physical health aftereffects of military service,” she says.

Hanging out with friends after school and on the weekends is a vital part of a teen’s social life. But for adolescents with autism spectrum disorders, social activity outside of school is a rarity, finds a new study by Paul Shattuck, PhD, autism expert and assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.