Arts & Sciences

Gary S. Wihl, Ph.D., who joined WUSTL July 1 as dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences, will be installed as the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities during a 4:30 p.m. ceremony Sept. 16.

On Sept. 12, the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will explore the role of ethnicity in contemporary dance with “Dancing Who I Am,” a panel discussion and informal concert featuring faculty performers and leading critics and choreographers from around the country.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have shown that individual cells isolated from the biological clock can keep daily time all by themselves. However, by themselves, they are unreliable. The neurons get out of synch and capriciously quit or start oscillating again.

Fiction writer Lydia Millet will read from her work at 8 p.m. Sept. 17 in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge to open the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences’ fall Reading Series. Millet is the author of six novels, beginning with the subversive coming-of-age tale “Omnivores,” which centers on a young woman whose megalomaniac […]

Gary NoelDavid Dorfman Dance”Does what you do make a difference?” “Is violence ever justified?” “When can activism become terrorism, or vice versa?” Such provocative questions lie at the heart of underground, an ambitious evening-length multimedia dance piece by acclaimed choreographer David Dorfman. On Sept. 25 and 26 Dorfman — a Washington University alumnus — will return to Edison Theatre with his company, David Dorfman Dance, to launch the 2009-10 OVATIONS Series.

Fiction writer Lydia Millet will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences Millet is the author of six novels, beginning with the subversive coming-of-age tale Omnivores (1996), which centers on a young woman whose megalomaniac father turns their home into an armed camp after seceding from the United States. Her third novel, My Happy Life (2002), won the 2003 PEN-USA Award for Fiction. Her latest book is the forthcoming story collection Love in Infant Monkeys.

Juvenile male chimpanzee in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialized “tool kits” to forage for army ants, reveals new research published Sept. 3 in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a sustainable way of harvesting food. A team from the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, led by Crickette Sanz, Ph.D., assistant professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, studied several communities of chimpanzee throughout the Nouabalé-Ndoki national park in the Republic of Congo.

Around the world dance is often quite literally the physical embodiment of cultural identity and practice. Yet for individual dancers, the power of such traditions can give rise to certain expectations and even stereotypes based on perceived identity. On Sept. 12 the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will explore the role of ethnicity in contemporary dance with “Dancing Who I Am,” a panel discussion and informal concert featuring faculty members as well as leading critics and choreographers from around the country. The event comes as part of the semester-long series “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy,” organized by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values. Also as part of the series, the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies will screen Ancestor Eyes, an award-winning Native American short film, Sept. 13.

Violinist Erin Schreiber, assistant concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, will join pianist Martin Kennedy, assistant professor of composition and theory in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, for a free concert Thursday, Sept. 3.

Jazz at Holmes will open its fall series of free Thursday night jazz concerts Sept. 10 with an outdoor jazz tribute to the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.