Arts & Sciences

Voice messages sound in a lonely apartment. Robert is turning 35. “Happy birthday,” intone his friends. “You don’t look it.” Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” examines the nature of marriage and commitment through eyes of an aging lothario — the last dangerously unattached member of his social circle.​​​

NASA announced earlier this week that dark streaks that appear on Martian slopes in the summer, lengthen and then fade as winter approaches are seeps of salty water. The news that Mars still has surface water again raised hopes that it may have life. It will take thoughtful mission planning to find out, says Washington University in St. Louis Mars expert Ray Arvidson, PhD.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was among the most popular American composers of the 19th century. On Oct. 4, pianists Mark Tollefsen and Jae Won Kim will perform one of Gottschalk’s most enduring works in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.

What is the relationship between art and activism? How should artists engage questions of racial justice? Have events in Ferguson changed those equations? On Oct. 3, four St. Louis-based artists will discuss these questions and more as part of the Greater St. Louis Humanities Festival.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded David Fike, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, $2.4 million to adapt a powerful chemical microscope called the 7F-GEO SIMS for biological samples. The updated instrument’s ability to map the chemistry inside cells will boost research on microbes that are promising candidates for biofuel or bioenergy production.

While party politics have put House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the hot seat in recent months, his hasty resignation from Congress this morning was unexpected, suggests Steven S. Smith, PhD, a nationally recognized expert on congressional politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

While Pope Francis’ whirlwind tour of the United States might seem like a politicized poke-in-the-eye to some conservative American Catholics, his itinerary and social justice talking points closely mirror core Catholic beliefs detailed in church scripture since Matthew wrote his gospel, suggests a historian of Christianity at Washington University in St. Louis.

Todd Decker, PhD, chair of music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, spoke this month about musical film star Fred Astaire at a study day titled “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: A London Celebration” at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

James V. Wertsch, PhD, founding director of one of the most successful and innovative global scholarship programs in the world, has been named the inaugural David R. Francis Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Wertsch is vice chancellor for international affairs and director of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy.

In “The Divine Buoyancy of Being,” Cary Simowitz explores what happens when youthful dreams collide with economic reality, entry-level positions and the unintended consequences of a governmental shutdown.