Arts & Sciences

Tej Azad, a junior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was among 162 students from across the country named a Newman Civic Fellow for 2012 by Campus Compact. The Newman Civic Fellows Awards recognize inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country and the world.

After it rules on the highly contested health-care debate and makes other momentous decisions this term, will the U.S. Supreme have sufficient stores of legitimacy to weather the inevitable backlash? Yes, but barely, says a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.

A symposium focusing on culture, law and development in Brazil will be held April 4-6 at WUSTL. Events — which include a keynote lecture, film, and dance and percussion workshop — are free and open to the public, with the exception of the April 6 book discussion, which is open only to WUSTL faculty and graduate students.

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present its fifth biennial Young Choreographers Showcase Friday through Sunday, April 6-8 in the Annelise Mertz Dance Studio. The concert will feature more than a dozen dancers in ten original works created by student choreographers in the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.

Arthur Kleinman, MD, one of the world’s leading medical anthropologists, will speak on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis for the Assembly Series. His lecture, “The Quest for Moral Wisdom in Academic Life: Why William James Still Matters for the Art of Living,” will begin at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 5, in Graham Chapel.

Philosophy makes little mention of the theater except to denounce it as a place of illusion and moral decay. Theater tends to respond by steering away from philosophy, driven by the notion that theater consists of actions, not ideas. But in The Drama of Ideas, Harvard scholar Martin Puchner, argues that despite this mutual evasion, the histories of philosophy and theater have in fact been crucially intertwined. On April 5, Puchner will present Washington University’s 10th Helen Clanton Morrin Lecture.

Mary Boatwright, PhD, professor of ancient history in the Department of Classical Studies at Duke University, will give the annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 5, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. Her talk, “Agrippa’s Inscription on Hadrian’s Pantheon,” will focus on Rome’s most widely known yet enigmatic building

WUSTL’s 12-member chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the international  honor society in education, recently presented a book to every single child in Northview Elementary School as part of a literacy service project. Junior Sarah Samborn, foreground, and  other members spent the day at the school March 23, reading to the children and leading them in fun activities. ​​​

Written in 1956 as a gift for a friend’s wedding, Daniel Pinkham’s Wedding Cantata consists of four movements based on texts from The Song of Songs, the Biblical book most explicitly dedicated to the joys of earthly love. On April 1, the Washington University Concert Choir and the Washington University Chamber Choir will present the Wedding Cantata as the centerpiece of Many Waters, a free concert of songs about love and marriage.

Winner have been named for the 25th annual Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition sponsored by Washington University Libraries. WUSTL undergrads and graduate students entered their essays into one of two categories, competing for prizes of $1,000 for first place and $500 for second place in each category.