WashU Expert: Our post-fact reality
The 2020 presidential election is over. Joe Biden has won. And yet the clarity and consensus that elections once brought, however grudgingly, now founders on the shores of post-fact partisanship, says Douglas Flowe, assistant professor of history in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Widening income gap means less grocery variety for all
Even before COVID-19 and resulting shutdowns created gridlock for some global supply chains, the assortment at many neighborhood supermarkets was dwindling. The cause was not a lack of supply, though, but rather a lack of demand created by a widening income gap in the U.S., according to a new study involving a Washington University in St. Louis researcher.
The twilight’s last gleaming
Nine Washington University scholars ruminate on race, COVID-19, police
brutality and America as the house of pain.
The Free Market Has Failed U.S. Working Parents
New federal policies for paid leave, quality and affordable childcare, fair work schedules, and living wages are more important than ever.
Blue Song
St. Louis in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams
In 2011, the centennial of Tennessee Williams’s birth, events were held around the world honoring America’s greatest playwright. There were festivals, conferences, and exhibitions held in places closely associated with Williams’s life and career—New Orleans held major celebrations, as did New York, Key West, and Provincetown. But absolutely nothing was done to celebrate Williams’s life […]
The Passion Projects
Modernist Women, Intimate Archives, Unfinished Lives
It’s impossible, now, to think of modernism without thinking about gender, sexuality, and the diverse movers and shakers of the early twentieth century. But this was not always so. “The Passion Projects” examines biographical projects that modernist women writers undertook to resist the exclusion of their friends, colleagues, lovers, and companions from literary history. Many […]
Begin with love: A remembrance of Chancellor Bill Danforth
Professor Emeritus Wayne Fields reflects on the transformative leadership of Bill Danforth.
For all ages
What would a truly intergenerational community look like? Three WashU scholars explain how a community can become more accessible for people of every age.
The Electoral College
On Nov. 7, Joe Biden was declared the winner in Pennsylvania, making him president-elect of the United States. Yet it had been clear since Americans went to the polls Nov. 3 that Biden would win the popular vote. The days of uncertainty and drama were entirely due to the arcane and archaic mechanics of the Electoral College, says Rachel Brown, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
How a human cousin adapted to a changing climate
A fossil discovery in South Africa suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex. An international research team including anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis reported their discovery in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Nov. 9.
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