Arts & Sciences

Five new department chairs have been named in Arts & Sciences: Mark G. Alford, PhD, Department of Physics; Mark Rollins, PhD, Performing Arts Department; John Nachbar, PhD, Department of Economics; Hillel Kieval, PhD, Department of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures; Peter Schmelz, PhD, Department of Music; and Timothy Moore, PhD, Department of Classics.

In The Anchorage, his debut collection, poet Mark Wunderlich creates a central metaphor of the body as anchor for the soul, in poems located in New York’s summer streets, in the barren snowfields of Wisconsin, and along stretches of Cape Cod’s open shoreline. On Thursday, Oct. 25, Wunderlich will read from his work for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

Evolutionary biologist David C. Queller, PhD, was installed Oct. 16 as the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences in a ceremony in Holmes Lounge.

​More students are enrolling in University College’s post-baccalaureate pre-med program because of the economy and a newfound desire to help people.

Cyrano is smart, courageous and noble, a brilliant poet and skilled swordsman. He is utterly besotted with the beautiful Roxanne. But oh, that nose! On Friday, the Aquila Theatre Company — today’s leading producer of touring classical theater — will return to Edison with Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand’s funny, poignant and often heart-wrenching tale of unrequited love. On Saturday, Aquila will retake the stage with Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s timeless battle of the sexes.

A scat-sniffing dog by the name of Pinkerton may be the best friend ever for a small, highly elusive group of endangered monkey and gibbon species now scrambling for survival in the vanishing forests of a remote Chinese mountain range. The high-energy Belgian Malinois is a critical player in efforts to preserve the black-crested gibbon and the Phayre’s leaf monkey.

It’s a big claim, but Washington University in St. Louis planetary scientist Frédéric Moynier says his group has discovered evidence that the Moon was born in a flaming blaze of glory when a body the size of Mars collided with the early Earth.

Hailed by some as the “end of race as we know it” and the beginning of a “post-racial” America, the 2008 election of Barack Obama sparked a measurable bump in feelings of political empowerment among black Americans. But those sentiments have faded considerably over the last year or so, according to a new analysis of political survey data, with the sharpest declines in perceived political power coming among blacks who identify themselves as conservatives or “born again” Christians.​

The first presidential debate was most striking for Gov. Mitt Romney’s aggressiveness and President Barack Obama’s rhetorical reserve, but the town hall format in the second debate provides an extra challenge for the candidates, says Peter Kastor, PhD, professor of history and American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis. The two debates also reveal one of the greatest challenges to candidates as they try to appear Presidential: balancing emotional display with appropriate reserve.

Aaron Copland and George Gershwin are perhaps the most iconically American of composers. On Oct. 21, three faculty from WUSTL’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will join a string quartet from the St. Louis Symphony for the concluding concert of the 2012 American Arts Experience-St. Louis. The program will highlight works by Copland and Gershwin as well as by Antonín Dvorák, who played a prominent role in encouraging American composers.