Perspectives

David Schuman, author and director of the university’s creative writing program, discusses what he calls “the void,” that ineffable quality of art, something too great to be expressed in words, artwork or music, for Arts & Sciences’ “Hold That Thought” podcast.

Will Ross, MD, associate dean for diversity at the School of Medicine, writes a column in The St. Louis American challenging people to be civil but candid with one another in conversations about race and social justice.

As the Summer Olympic Games get underway today in Rio, check out an article by Jacob Nason, an incoming senior in Arts & Sciences, considering the academic angle on nationalism at the Olympics.

Suhas Gondi, a biology major in Arts & Sciences, writes on the In-Training website about the Black Lives Matter movement and how systemic racism affects not only our justice system but also our health-care system.

Psychology researchers Fade Eadeh and Stephanie Peak, of Arts & Sciences, write for Quartz about the psychology of revenge and the insights it can offer about what motivates people’s actions.

Patrick Rishe, director of the Sports Business Program at Olin, writes about athlete Tim Duncan’s impact on the financial fundamentals and success of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.

Raymond Arvidson, of Arts & Sciences, discusses spectroscopy on Mars and his work on NASA missions to explore that planet on Spectroscopy Online.

Joseph Jez, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, talks about the importance of plant biology as it relates to day-to-day science at the TedXGateway Arch event May 17, 2016. Studying biochemical networks in plants and microbes, Jez’s aim is to engineer those systems to address agricultural and environmental issues and find solutions to real-world problems.

Gerald Izenberg, professor emeritus of history in Arts & Sciences, is the author of a new book on “Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea.” The University of Pennsylvania Press published the book in its Intellectual History of the Modern Age series.

In “Ramadan Diaries,” two Arts & Sciences students, Oguz Alyanak and Dick Powis, who are studying anthropology, blog about their experiences of fasting among Muslims during Ramadan this summer in France and Senegal.