The New York Times Well-oiled security apparatus in China stifles calls for change 03/01/2011 Police react to calls for Middle East-style demonstrations by placing dozens of dissidents and campaigners under house arrest. Carl Minzner, an expert in Chinese law at Washington University in St. Louis, said many courts will coerce plaintiffs into settling lawsuits regardless […]
Influential film theorist Laura Mulvey, professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, will discuss “Modernity and Obsolescence: The Use of Rear Projection in Film” at 4 p.m. Friday, March 4, for the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences. Mulvey is perhaps best known for the germinal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, which explored questions relating to spectatorial identification and the male gaze, and which arguably helped establish feminist film theory as a field of study. Mulvey’s talk is presented as part of the Center for the Humanities’ 2011 Faculty Fellows Lecture and Workshop Series.
Song, dance and dishes from a variety of nations represented by students at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis highlight the 17th annual International Festival Sunday, March 6 at the 560 Music Center. The event, which is open to the public, begins at 5 p.m. with a food tasting of 11 different dishes. This year’s theme is “1 Community, A World of Traditions.”
WUSTL has been named a Tree Campus USA for 2010 by the Arbor Day Foundation. WUSTL is among the first schools in Missouri to receive the honor. Tree Campus USA is a distinction given by the Arbor Day Foundation to recognize schools across the United States for their dedication to healthy campus forestry management and engaging the community in environmental stewardship.
In an age of computer graphics and 3-D rendering, South African artist William Kentridge employs the simplest materials imaginable — paper, charcoal and pastel — to create animated films that explore apartheid, colonialism, human rights abuses and other sobering topics with breathtaking insight and poignancy. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, Kentridge — whose work also includes prints, books, sculpture, collage, etching and performing arts — will receive the Dean’s Medal from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.
A research group at Washington University in St. Louis has received more than $2 million to test a biomimetic material that promises to improve the success rate of the more than 75,000 rotator cuff (shoulder tendon) repairs performed each year in the United States. The natural attachment of tendon to bone relies on a transition zone where the material properties of bone shade into those of tendon. The biodegradable patch would provide an environment where stem cells could recreate this transition after surgery, making repairs less prone to failure.
One of the most acclaimed poets of her generation, Louise Glück has, over the last four decades, received virtually every major honor available to a U.S. poet, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Wallace Stevens Award for “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.” At 8 p.m. Thursday, March 10, Glück, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in Washington University, will read from her work as part of The Writing Program’s spring Reading Series.
A new study by Esteban Varela, MD, shows that adjustable gastric banding, a type of weight loss surgery that reduces the size of the stomach, is safe in people who are mildly obese.
Irish Times (UK) Biblio detective work restores Jefferson legacy 02/27/2011 Thomas Jefferson is acknowledged to have been the US’s most bibliophile president. Washington University in St. Louis has just discovered it owns 74 volumes that belonged to Jefferson, many of them with his notations. So his retirement library has been virtually reconstructed, 182 years after […]
