Humanities & Society

Martin Luther King, Jr.August 28 marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, one of the most famous and stirring addresses in U.S. history. In commemoration, the International Writers Center (IWC) in Arts & Sciences will host a public roundtable with St. Louis scholars and civil rights activists. The event also includes a video presentation of King’s entire, 15-minute address.

EarlyGerald Early, Ph.D., Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, contends that the Korean War was a driving force behind integration efforts during the early years of the civil rights movement and was therefore one of the most important conflicts in our nation’s history. In his forthcoming book, “When Worlds Collide: The Korean War and the Integration of the United States,” Early argues that the successful integration of the military in Korea encouraged the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegregation ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education, and helped change attitudes about race. Had the military failed, integration overall would have suffered, he contends.

LeVineCivil strife and violence in Liberia has produced numerous calls for U.S. military involvement, but should America heed these calls? Victor T. Le Vine, professor emeritus of political science in Arts & Sciences, contends the United States has a moral imperative to take action in Liberia based on strong historical ties to the nation. In a St. Louis Post-Dispatch commentary, Le Vine explains how the United State brought Liberia into existence and has in the past supported an unjust social system hostile to indigenous people. “We owe the Liberians some relief from the brutal lot we helped to create,” he argues.

WarrenThe administrative costs of federal regulation are budgeted to reach an all-time high of $30.1 billion in 2003, as more money is devoted to the environment, transportation security, and securities regulation, according to a new report issued jointly by the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The budget request for 2004 suggests a slight decline from the 2003 peak to $28.9 billion.

Forty years ago this month, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.Most Americans are familiar with the “I have a dream” passage of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous public address. But most have forgotten his admonishments, his criticism of America and the pressures he brought to bear through his message delivered on that sweltering August day 40 years ago, says a civil rights historian at Washington University in St. Louis. “Too often, that part of his speech is ignored, subsumed to the tranquil tones of ‘I have a dream …,'” says Leslie Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and of African and Afro-American studies, both in Arts & Sciences. For that reason, Brown says, four decades after the March on Washington and King’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech, that dream is still not realized.

Older workers enrolled in a computer training class.Some economists predict that by 2030, the United States could experience a labor shortage of 35 million workers. Many businesses, including retail giants such as Wal-Mart and McDonalds, have responded to a looming labor shortage by encouraging older workers to remain in the workforce. But a recent study issued by the U.S. General Accounting Office finds that many of the government’s existing employment assistance programs are not providing computer training and other high-tech skills to workers over the age of 55, a demographic that may soon constitute roughly one-third of the entire American workforce. Nancy Morrow-Howell, Ph.D., a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and a leader in the emerging field of productive aging research, contends that America’s economic future may well hinge on our ability to help older adults continue making contributions to society.

Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoErik Herzog, Ph.D., and graduate student Rachel Huckfeldt attach electrodes to a multielectrode array.Getting over jet lag may be as simple as changing the temperature —your brain temperature, that is. That’s a theory proposed by Erik Herzog, Ph.D. assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Herzog has found that the biological clocks of rats and mice respond directly to temperature changes.

O’SullivanAn electrical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has devised a theory that sets the limits for the amount of data that can be hidden in a system and then provides guidelines for how to store data and decode it. Contrarily, the theory also provides guidelines for how an adversary would disrupt the hidden information. The theory will have a major impact on homeland security applications.

Experimental economics — a fast-growing branch of economics that involves the creation of a microeconomic environment in a laboratory — is being widely used at the John M. Olin School of Business. Applications of the experimental research have multiplied, spanning many industries and producing results that have impacted everything from how airlines price their tickets to how companies manage their employees. Ronald R. King, Ph.D., is helping to lead the burgeoning new area of research at the business school.

Carrying backpacks the right wayAs parents and kids make their lists for the August back-to-school sales, one item to consider should be a backpack — on wheels, says Nancy J. Bloom, Ph.D., a physical therapy instructor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Kids backs are primarily bearing the weight of their schoolbooks. Bloom says that because young bones are growing all the way through high school, heavy backpacks need to be a major concern. She notes that there are a few important things that kids can do to avoid injury, including carrying their backpacks over both shoulders to balance the load.