Humanities & Society

Two days before the Haiti earthquake, Lora Iannotti, Ph.D., nutrition and public health expert from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, traveled to Port-au-Prince and Leogane, Haiti, to continue her research about undernutrition and disease prevention in young children. The massive tremor changed her focus from research for the future to survival, with her team helping children in the aftermath of the quake.

WUSTL faculty from law and political science were quick to offer opinions to the news media about implications of a controversial Jan. 21 ruling by the The U.S. Supreme Court that will allow corporations and unions to spend freely in elections, a decision many expect to shift the balance of political power.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn campaign spending limits for corporations “strikes a serious blow against efforts to stem the dominance of corporations in our political process,” says Gregory  P. Magarian, J.D., constitutional and election law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.  “The Court overruled a longstanding decision that had struck a sensible, carefully drawn balance between the self-interest of corporations and interests of integrity and fairness in the political process.“

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Society of Black Student Social Workers at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work will host the fourth annual “Financial Freedom Seminar: Tying Loose Ends—Becoming Financially Secure,” from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, in Brown Hall, Room 100.

Ray Suarez, author and senior correspondent for PBS’s The NewsHour, was scheduled to present “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, in Graham Chapel. This lecture has been canceled.

In his latest book, “Repairing Paradise, The Restoration of Nature in America’s National Parks,” WUSTL political science professor William R. Lowry takes us to Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Everglades national parks to examine four contentious issues that disrupted the natural side of these parks, and identifies keys to how they could be overcome. Lowry comments on the book in an extensive review published Jan. 8 in the magazine National Parks Traveler.   

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Society of Black Student Social Workers at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work will host the fourth annual “Financial Freedom Seminar: Tying Loose Ends — Becoming Financially Secure,” from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, in Brown Hall, Room 100. The seminar, free and open to the public, is designed for St. Louis community youth and adults interested in building wealth, repairing and maintaining good credit, purchasing a home or starting and expanding a business.

An international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D. professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has reanalyzed the complete immature dentition of a 30,000 year-old-child from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal. The new analysis of the Lagar Velho child shows that these “early modern humans” were modern without being “fully modern.”

Having trouble figuring out what to get that high school senior on your gift list this holiday season? Or parents, want to make sure your 17-year-old keeps his or her mind on the right track while on winter break? A book might provide a simple solution. Washington University in St. Louis faculty offer their suggestions for the one book — in a few cases two or three — that a high school senior should read before heading off to college, whether to be better prepared for the college classroom or for living away from home or simply to be a more well-rounded person.

John C. Danforth, former U.S. senator, speaks during a Dec. 16 news conference while Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton looks on. The University is establishing a scholarly and educational center that will focus on the role of religion in politics in the United States, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. “The establishment of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics reflects the legacy of Jack Danforth and his belief in the importance of a civil discourse that treats differences with respect,” Wrighton said. The creation of the center, which includes the recruitment of five new faculty members with endowed professorships, is being made possible by a $30 million endowment gift from the St. Louis-based Danforth Foundation. It is believed to be the largest gift of its kind made to a university to fund such an academic center.