Arts & Sciences

Arts & Sciences teaching assistants listen as they are recognized for their “exemplary” performance during the annual Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence ceremony, held April 19 in the Danforth University Center. The ceremony, in which 13 graduate students were recognized, coincided with the kickoff of Graduate Education Week in Missouri, April 19-24, as designated by Gov. Jay Nixon.

Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., adjunct professor of religious studies in Arts & Sciences and author of The Encyclopedia of Catholicism (2007) comments on the damage the pedophilia scandal has caused the church and claims the Vatican’s own laws are responsible.

Water and energy is the theme of an Earth Day seminar sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering. Paul Bishop, PhD, the Herman Schneider Professor of Environmental Engineering and associate vice president for research at the University of Cincinnati, will deliver the keynote speech “The Water-Energy Nexus” at 11 a.m. Friday, April 23, in Lopata Hall, Room 101.

America’s satisfaction with government is hovering at all time lows according to recent polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center, but don’t assume these sentiments spell doom for the Democratic Party in coming elections, says a congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The dark clouds of volcanic ash that have closed airports and stranded travelers for days on end may have a silver lining, suggests an expert on human creativity from Washington University in St. Louis. Like it or note, stranded travelers around the globe are suddenly finding themselves with a lot of unscheduled time on their hands, and idle time is a key ingredient to becoming more creative in your personal and professional lives.

The Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences has announced its first grant recipients for two newly established programs: the Faculty Seminar Grants and the Reading Group Grants for Faculty and Graduate Students.

“The myth is a public dream.” So argues playwright Mary Zimmerman in Metamorphoses, her hypnotic, Tony Award-winning adaptation of myths by the Roman poet Ovid. Beginning Friday, April 23 and for two consecutive weekends, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present Metamorphoses, perhaps the most acclaimed theatrical work of the last decade, as its spring Mainstage production. 

Critic Marjorie Perloff, a Visiting Hurst Professor in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, will present a lecture titled “Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 14. The talk — adapted from the opening chapter of her forthcoming book of the same title — will examine the practices of allusion and quotation in modern poetry. 

John Stern, PhD, a pioneering psychophysiologist who conducted research at Washington University for nearly 60 years, died April 3, 2010 in St. Louis. He was 85.

Kevin Prufer and Teddy Wayne, both alumni of The Writing Program in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, will read from their work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 22. Prufer is the author of four books of poetry as well as editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing. Wayne (right) is the author of the forthcoming novel Kapitoil.