Arts & Sciences

The achievement gap separating black and white students has been known and studied for a number of years. However, new research focusing on black males shows the gap may be much bigger than originally thought. How to breach the divide? Better teachers, suggests a WUSTL expert in science education proficiency.

Art historian Monica Amor will discuss “Affect and the Participatory Dimension of Brazilian Neoconcretism: 1959-1964” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. Part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series, the talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences and is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. 

In her research, Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences, uses the tools of classic earth science to address questions of archeological interest.

Israeli violinist Eyal Kless will join pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, and two musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra — violist Shannon Farrell Williams and cellist Bjorn Ranheim — for a free performance at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8. The program will feature music of Frédéric Chopin, Samuel Barber and Robert Schumann. 

In the wake of the 2010 election, Washington University in St. Louis congressional expert Steve Smith looks ahead to the next Congress and how the new majority in the House of Representatives and Republican gains in the Senate will affect President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda.

Acclaimed poet and fiction writer Eileen Myles, named by BUST magazine as “the rock star of modern poetry” and author most recently of Inferno (A Poet’s Novel), will present a pair of events as part of the fall Writing Program Reading Series. Myles is the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. 

Shirley H. Perry, a Washington University in St. Louis alumna and author of the recently released After Many Days: My Life as a Spy and Other Grand Adventures, will tell about her days as a CIA operative during the Cold War at a reading and book signing at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in Tisch Commons in the Danforth University Center at Washington University.

It’s a madcap weekend of comic mayhem as Chicago sensations 500 Clown target a pair of literary classics with in-your-face improv, commedia dell’arte and physical theater. On Friday, Nov. 5, the company will descend upon Edison Theatre with 500 Clown Macbeth, a boisterous romp through William Shakespeare, followed on Saturday, Nov. 6, by 500 Clown Frankenstein, a similar affront to Mary Shelley. 

Some of the world’s leading social scientists will be on campus Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 4-6, as Washington University in St. Louis hosts an academic conference honoring the legacy of Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North, PhD. North, who celebrates his 90th birthday Friday, Nov. 5, is the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences and co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

The Department of Education in Arts & Sciences will host a one-day conference on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education on Friday, Nov. 5 in Seigle Hall, Room 148. Titled “Beyond Stock Stories and Folktales: African Americans and the Pipeline to the Professoriate: An Evidence-Based Examination of STEM Fields,” the conference will focus on diversity in science education.