Arts & Sciences

Poet Claudia Rankine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in Arts & Science, will lead a talk on the craft of poetry at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20. In addition, she will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29. Rankine is the author of four poetry collections, including Nothing in Nature is Private (1995), The End of the Alphabet (1998), PLOT (2001) and the experimental Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), which combines poetry, essays, images and travelogue. Her most recent project is a play, The Provenance of Beauty, A South Bronx Travelogue, for the Foundry Theatre in New York

Pianist Martin Kennedy, assistant professor of composition and theory in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a free faculty recital at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. The program will include five original works by Kennedy, performed by Kennedy and guest musicians from Washington University, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Maryville University and the University of Missouri—St. Louis.

What do ripening pumpkins, sunspots and scratching dogs have to do with stock market crashes in the month of October? Just ask Washington University in St. Louis economics professor Stephen Williamson. He proposes three theories on why the stock market might tend to crash in October as it did so famously in 1929, 1987 and 2008.

David Callahan, public policy activist and author of The Cheating Culture: Why Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead and The Moral Center: How We Can Reclaim Our Country from Die Hard Extremists, Rogue Corporations, Hollywood Hacks and Pretend Patriots, will present “Creating a Culture of Integrity.” His talk, at 11 a.m., Thursday October 15 in Graham Chapel, is being hosted by the Center for Academic Integrity Conference, the Assembly Series and the Center for Ethics and Human Values. The event is free and open to the public.

Harold Ford Jr., once described by President Bill Clinton as “the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century,” will give this year’s Elliot Stein Lecture in Ethics for the Assembly Series Oct. 7.

Author Rikki Ducornet, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in Arts & Science, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1. In addition, she will lead a talk on the craft of fiction at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8. Ducornet, the is the author of seven novels, including The Fan Maker’s Inquisition (2004) — a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year—and The Jade Cabinet (1993), a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

Lee Nelken Robins, Ph.D., professor emeritus of social science in psychiatry at the School of Medicine, died at her home Sept. 25, 2009, following a long battle against cancer. She was 87.

Since the early 20th century, avant-garde writers, artists and composers have championed the creative possibilities of the arbitrary and the accidental. Next week, the Department of Music and the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department (PAD), both in Arts & Sciences, and the Mil-dred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a concert exploring the […]

John CageSince the early 20th century avant-garde writers, artists and composers have championed the creative possibilities of the arbitrary and the accidental. Next week the Department of Music and the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department, both in Arts & Sciences, along with the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a concert exploring the use of chance in modern and contemporary music. The performance — held in conjunction with the exhibition Chance Aesthetics, now on view at the Kemper Art Museum — is free and open to the public and begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.

 Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo ServicesShaun Hudson as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and Renae Adams as Mother  Ragtime, Terrence McNally’s acclaimed adaptation of the 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, is a sweeping and ambitious tale of race, class and the promise of America at the dawn of the 20th century. It is also a tremendously demanding theatrical production, requiring almost 50 actors and at least a dozen musicians. Indeed, Ragtime is so logistically challenging — more than 150 different costumes must be designed and sewn — that it virtually precludes staging by all but the largest of regional theaters. Yet next month, The Black Rep will join forces with the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences to present this Tony Award-winning musical as the fall Mainstage production.