Humanities & Society

New research from Washington University in St. Louis argues that policymakers should enact gradual cutoffs for public benefits such as food assistance or healthcare. The change could help both families and employers by allowing low-wage workers to earn more without losing critical support systems.

Jin Huang, the Irving Louis Horowitz Professor in Social Policy at the WashU Brown School, has been appointed to serve on the advisory board of the Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work within the Council on Social Work Education.

As Americans work longer than previous generations, employers have an opportunity to create workplaces that support employees of all ages, according to a new article by Cal Halvorsen, associate professor at the WashU Brown School.

The silkworm moth, whose caterpillars have been used in silk production since antiquity, may have been brought to southern Central Asia 4,000 years ago — nearly 2,000 years earlier than previously assumed — according to new research from WashU.

Jason Jabbari, an assistant professor at the WashU Brown School, has received a one-year $300,000 grant from the Popolo Family Foundation to study why some students with limited resources persist and thrive in college while others leave before earning a degree.

Helina Woldekiros was the first female Ethiopian archaeologist to earn a doctoral degree at an American institution. Now an associate professor of archaeology in WashU Arts & Sciences, she is exploring the culture of the kingdom that gave the world coffee.

In “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life,” WashU’s Ian Bogost explores the real but often unremarked delights to be found in ordinary encounters with the physical world. “While you are waiting for the supposedly important stuff to arrive,” Bogost writes, “a million cases of the small stuff come and go.”

People join movements for many reasons. The American Revolution was no different, says Peter Kastor, a professor of history at WashU. “They all agree on liberty. They disagree on what it means.”