Kita, Shearer win NEH fellowships

Caroline Kita, associate professor of German and of comparative literature, and Samuel Shearer, assistant professor of African and African American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, have won research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

‘Infrastructural Optimism’

In cynical times, optimism gets a bad rap. But in her new book “Infrastructural Optimism,” Linda C. Samuels argues that optimism is not simply a reflexive emotional state, but a critical driver of public investment, societal progress and — perhaps — democracy itself.

Wang receives NASA grant

Alian Wang, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, received a three-year $570,828 award from NASA for planetary research.

WashU Expert: Filibuster carve-out protects majority rule

A voting rights filibuster “carve-out” — or making an exception to the 60-vote threshold to overcome a legislative filibuster — would help to preserve the core democratic principle of majority rule, says an expert on constitutional law at Washington University in St. Louis.