Arts & Sciences

Playwright, actor and theater scholar Ashley Lucas, PhD, assistant professor of dramatic art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will speak on “Prisoners, Families and Performance: Community Engagement Through the Arts” at 4 p.m. Monday, March 26 in Eliot Hall. Lucas is the 2012 Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Speaker.

Misanthropic Alice is a budding eco-terrorist. Corvus has dedicated herself to mourning. Annabel is desperate to pursue the indulgences of ordinary American life. Misfit and motherless, these three teenage girls traverse a surreal desert landscape of eccentric characters, air-conditioning and darkly illuminating signs and portents. Welcome to The Quick and the Dead, the fourth novel by acclaimed fiction writer Joy Williams, who will read from her work March 21 for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

“The truth is puddles of predictability. This is going to have music and dancing and people dying, and it’s going to be amazing.” So observes Lilly, a 14-year-old novelist whose latest story may or may not be based on her own recently deceased mother. But the line could well serve as a statement-of-purpose for Camden & Lilly, the new play by Carter Lewis, which will receive its world premiere later this month at Washington University in St. Louis.

Mathematician John E. McCarthy, PhD, was installed March 2 as the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences in a ceremony in Holmes Lounge.  Following the formal installation and the presentation of the professorship medallion, McCarthy spoke on “Why Pure Mathematics Matters.”

Keith Sawyer, PhD, associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences, will deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa Lecture for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Monday, March 26, in College Hall on the university’s Danforth Campus. His talk, “Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration,” is free and open to the public.

Todd Gitlin, PhD, a noted 1960s cultural scholar and book author, will visit Washington University in St. Louis Wednesday and Thursday, March 28 and 29, to keynote a two-day mini-colloquium exploring the counter-cultural movements of the year 1968, including a special focus on the many literary, social, political and artistic theories spawned by these movements. 

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton has announced two senior leadership appointments. Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences, has been named dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. Sharon Stahl, PhD, associate vice chancellor for students and dean of the First Year Center, has been named vice chancellor for students. They will fill the dual roles held by James E. McLeod before his death Sept. 6.

A lone tenor takes the stage. Her voice is hushed and plaintive over a pair of drums but quickly grows full and strong as she’s joined by a score of fellow singers. The song is Jesu Ngowethu, a traditional Zulu spiritual, and it marks the beginning of African Grace, the new program by Soweto Gospel Choir. On March 23, the Grammy Award-winning ensemble will return to Washington University as part of the Edison Ovations Series.

Eighteen Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate students will have the opportunity to spend their spring break in a unique way — a 10-day immersion in various aspects of the Israeli economy, from innovation to government to high-tech start-ups.

Research by WUSTL anthropologist Crickette Sanz, PhD, and colleague David Morgan, PhD, has spurred the Republic of Congo to enlarge its Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park boundaries to include the Goualougo Triangle. The Goualougo Triangle is a remote, pristine forest that is home to at least 14 communities of “naïve” chimpanzees with little exposure to humans.