Arts & Sciences

A team led by physicist Ken Kelton, PhD, is building an electrostatic levitation chamber that will be installed at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Kelton and his colleagues are particularly eager to see what the new instrument will tell them about glass transition, “the deepest and most interesting unsolved problem in solid-state research.”

Celebrated memoirist, poet and playwright Nick Flynn, author most recently of The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir of Bewilderment (2010), will read from his work at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 31, for The Writing Program Reading Series in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. The talk is free and open to the public and takes place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall.

Congressional expert Steven S. Smith says Congress has plenty of parliamentary tactics for stalling and pushing through legislation. The fate of the health care reform bill could be determined by a process of reconciliation, filibusters, deeming or something Smith calls a “vote-a-rama”.

The Max Kade Center on Contemporary German Literature will celebrate its 25th anniversary by hosting the 20th St. Louis Symposium on German Literature, “The Ethics of Literature: Contemporary German Writers,” Friday through Sunday, March 26-28, in Room 276 of the Danforth University Center.

Celebrated poet Frank Bidart, author of Desire and Watching the Spring Festival, will speak on the craft of poetry at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 23. Bidart will then present a reading from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 25. He is on campus as the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences.

As one of the “generic geologists” on a dig called the Dakhleh Oasis Project, Jennifer Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, was asked to sample the alum from ancient mines and to determine whether it could be the source of the blue in the “blue painted pottery” found at sites dating from the New Kingdom.

Eric Greitens, PhD, chief executive officer of The Mission Continues, will address the importance of public service in his upcoming lecture, “Inspiring Leadership in Challenging Times.” Sponsored by the Assembly Series and the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, the talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 30, in Room 118, Brown Hall. It will be followed by a reception and service project in Brown Lounge.

David Frankfurter, PhD, professor of religious studies and history at the University of New Hampshire, will give the Weltin Lecture in Religious Studies at 4 p.m. Monday, March 22, in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Peter Wyse Jackson, PhD (left), who has been appointed to succeed Peter H. Raven, PhD, the Engelmann Professor of Botany, as president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, visited the Danforth Campus March 3 to meet biology department faculty and to deliver a seminar on international efforts to slow or halt the loss of biodiversity.

“There is no greater crime than abandoning your history.” So learns Undine, a hard-charging Manhattan social climber who is forced back to Brooklyn in Fabulation, Lynn Nottage’s Obie Award-winning satire of the African-American bourgeoisie. The Performing Arts Department  in Arts & Sciences will present the sharp-eyed comedy from Thursday through Sunday, March 25-28, in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.