Arts & Sciences

Praised as “one of the finest players of his generation” by the Moscow’s Kommersant Daily, Scottish pianist Kenneth Hamilton is renowned for his spectacular performances of Romantic music, particularly the work of Franz Liszt (1811-86). On Feb. 26, Hamilton will mark the 200th anniversary of Liszt’s birth with a solo piano recital titled “Liszt and His Contemporaries: A Pianistic Panorama” and take part in a free symposium organized by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences. 

Freshmen Ana Solorio (left), Michelle Hall and Dylan Simonsen chat with James E. McLeod, vice chancellor for students and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, during a reception this winter at Whittemore House. The three students were honored as the inaugural class of James E. McLeod Scholars.

Washington University in St. Louis students are helping students in Scott McClintock’s middle school science class at Maplewood-Richmond Heights use wind turbines, solar collectors and other materials to investigate ways to maximize energy from renewable sources.

City versus forest. Apollonian rationality versus Dionysian subconscious. Wayward lovers and working-class thespians versus the regal, glittering world of the fairies. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a study in contrasts, joining elegant verse and bawdy humor with cruel punishments and magical enchantments “past the wit of man.” This month, the Performing Arts Department will present the Bard’s most popular comedy — arguably the most popular ever written — as its spring Mainstage production.  

How have race relations in America evolved since the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Was the election of President Barack Obama a milestone in this regard? Did it truly serve as a turning point in America’s history of racial inequality? Later this month, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis will explore these questions and more with a symposium titled “Race in the Age of Obama.”  

At a time when the American economy needs the best and the brightest economic minds, prominent banker and philanthropist Sam B. Cook has given Washington University a critical resource to help develop the next generation of economic leaders with a gift of $1.5 million to establish a professorship in the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences.

Mark Alford, PhD, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, participated Jan. 29 in a roundtable discussion in New York about the quantum mind theory of consciousness. Quantum mind is a fashionable theory originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose that grounds perception in the periodic collapse of quantum entangled electrons in our brain. Alford, who studies phenomenon that can only be explained by quantum mechanics nonetheless played the role of the skeptic in the discussion, which was videotaped and posted on the web.

The inaugural class has been selected for the Professional Leadership Academy & Network (PLAN), a yearlong professional development program intended to cultivate future leaders at Washington University in St. Louis. And according to PLAN committee members, it was no easy task to choose the class of 26 from the “talented staff pool” of applicants.

Poet Kathleen Peirce will ready from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Peirce is the author of four books of poetry: Mercy (1991), Divided Touch, Divided Color (1995), The Oval Hour (1999) and The Ardors (2004). 

Crop yields from India’s first genetically modified crop may have been overemphasized, as modest rises in crop yields may come at the expense of sustainable farm management, says a new study by a Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist.