Arts & Sciences

CrissIt’s a 500-pound gorilla that Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, sees standing on the speaker’s dais at political rallies, debates and campaigns. Its name is population growth. And sometime during President-elect Barack Obama’s first several months in office, he will have to factor it into future environmental policy, says Criss.”Population growth is driving all of our resource problems, including water and energy. The three are intertwined,” Criss says. “The United States has over 305 million people of the 6.7 billion on the planet. We are dividing a finite resource pie among a growing number of people on Earth. We cannot expect to sustain exponential population growth matched by increased per capita use of water and energy. It’s troubling. But politicians and religious leaders totally ignore the topic.”

Washington University’s Jazz at Holmes series will present two internationally known musicians in free concerts at 8 p.m. Nov. 6 and 13. This Thursday, Nov. 6, Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik will perform in Holmes Lounge in Ridgley Hall. Though perhaps best known for her improvisations, Harnik also composes chamber music and music for the theater, […]

Eight faculty members from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present a showcase recital in conjunction with the Missouri Music Teachers Association’s (MMTA) annual instrumental and vocal competitive auditions. The program — which begins at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, in the 560 Music Center — will feature music of Frederic Chopin, […]

© Disney/Pixar*Pixar Shorts*Washington University’s Center for the Humanities and Program in Film & Media Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, will host their Fifth Annual Children’s Film Symposium Friday and Saturday, Nov. 21 and 22. Presented in conjunction with Cinema St. Louis, the festival will feature five screenings as well as introductions and post-show discussions by a half-dozen of the films’ creators.

Eight faculty from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present a showcase recital in conjunction with the Missouri Music Teachers Association’s (MMTA) annual instrumental and vocal competitive auditions.

Douglas A. Wiens, Ph.D., professor and chair of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will head the seismology research team of an ambitious international effort to map and analyze an unknown part of Antarctica.

The Jazz at Holmes Series will present two internationally reknowned musicians, pianist Elisabeth Harnik and saxophonist David Liebman, in free concerts Nov. 6 and 13.

Award-winning writer and critic Daniel Mendelsohn, Ph.D., will give this year’s annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, in Graham Chapel.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*Boston Marriage*David Mamet is perhaps the most instantly recognizable playwright of his generation, known for terse, highly stylized and strategically crude plays — such as Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speed-the-Plow (1988) and Oleanna (1992) — that relentlessly dissect contemporary masculinity.This month Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will showcase another side of Mamet with Boston Marriage, a sharp and sometimes shocking drawing room comedy centered on a pair of genteel Victorian women.

Alla MaileyMichael PollanCelebrated food writer Michael Pollan will receive the Washington University Humanities Medal as part of “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” the university’s seventh annual faculty book colloquium. The biannual award is given to a distinguished scholar, writer or artist whose career merits special recognition for excellence and courage.