Arts & Sciences

Famed public intellectual Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, will present the keynote address Thursday, Nov. 29 for “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” Washington University’s 11th annual faculty book colloquium.

Ah, December. Days grow shorter, checkout lines longer, and final exams inexorably closer. But on Dec. 2, audiences are invited to pause for an afternoon of “Joy and Wonder.” Presented by the Washington University Concert Choir and the Washington University Chamber Choir, the concert will feature a range of music relating to the holiday season.

They’ve shaken Shakespeare, humiliated Hollywood and affronted all the great books. Now the Reduced Shakespeare Company—those emperors of editing, those sultans of summary, those bad boys of abbreviation—is back and ready to tackle its most fearsome opponent yet: Santa Claus.

Mary Lou’s Mass is like a prayer on stage: a spirited homily rooted in the southern church, an uplifting sermon on life’s trials and ecstasies. On Nov. 30-Dec. 2, students from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will perform excerpts from this groundbreaking collaboration between choreographer Alvin Ailey and jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams as part of Rootedness, Mobility and Migration, the 2012 Washington University Dance Theatre concert.

Less than a month after national elections, veteran political journalist George Will delivers the fall keynote lecture for the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics. His talk, “Religion and Politics in the First Modern Nation,” begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Graham Chapel.

Two Arts & Sciences seniors from Washington University in St. Louis were among 232 U.S. finalists for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. They are Madeleine Daepp, an enomics and mathematics student with an interest in agrigultural policy, and Jeremy Pivor, an environmental biology major with a passion for ocean conservation.

Today, a group of the nation’s leading universities announced plans to launch a new, innovative program that transforms the model of online education. The new online education program, Semester Online, will be the first of its kind to offer undergraduate students the opportunity to take rigorous, online courses for credit from a consortium of universities. The program is delivered through a virtual classroom environment and interactive platform developed by 2U, formerly known as 2tor.

Washington University in St. Louis has taken a leadership role in helping to shape the future of online education by being a catalyst to bring together a consortium of the nation’s leading colleges and universities that plans to launch Semester Online. This program is a transformative new model for online education, offering undergraduate students the opportunity to take rigorous, online courses for credit from consortium schools.

Over the course of 30-plus years and more than 20 documentaries, Ken Burns’ films have illuminated the country’s past and brought history to life through techniques such as first person narration. For these lasting contributions, Burns will receive WUSTL’s International Humanities Medal. The event on Friday, Nov. 16, includes a preview and commentary of his upcoming films.

On November 8, 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the appointment of three new science envoys, including Barbara Schaal, the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The science envoys travel in their capacity as private citizens and advise the White House, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. scientific community about the insights they gain from their travels and interactions.