Arts & Sciences

Scholars from across the country and Canada will gather at Washington University in St. Louis Nov. 6 and 7 for the inaugural International Creole Corridor Symposium. The public is invited to attend the symposium, sponsored by the University and Les Amis (The Friends), the region’s Creole cultural heritage preservationist organization located in St. Louis.

An historian of politics and American institutions at Washington University in St. Louis says that there is a “profound” difference between the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama and ones to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And it has nothing to do with the fact that President Obama is only eight months into his first term as president and Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson were both near the end of their second terms when they received theirs, says Peter J. Kastor, Ph.D., an associate professor of history and of American culture studies in Arts & Sciences.

Soprano Jennifer Jakob and pianist Maria Sumareva will perform an intimate Liederabend for the Washington University Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, in Graham Chapel. Literally translated as “evening of song,” Liederabend is a German term referring to a recital given by a singer and pianist, particularly of works by 19th-century Austrian or German composers. The program will include examples by Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and Robert Schumann.

Intrigued by the discovery last February of Corot-7b, a rocky exoplanet, WUSTL scientists set out to investigate its atmosphere the only way so-far possible: by simulation.

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.

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.