Arts & Sciences

Acclaimed author Steve Stern, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature, will present a pair of events Nov. 13 and 20. Over the last quarter-century Stern has earned critical accolades for creating colorful characters that The New York Times says mine “the rich terrain of Eastern European Jewry.” His most recent novel is The Angel of Forgetfulness (2005), which the Washington Post praised as “touching, funny and dizzying.”

Award-winning writer and critic, Daniel Mendelsohn, will give this year’s annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture. His talk, “Finding ‘The Lost’: A Journey into the History, Family and Judaism,” will focus on his quest to unearth the stories of his family members who perished during World War II. In his 2006 best-selling memoir, “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million” Mendelsohn tells the story of his grandfather’s brother, who stayed behind in Ukraine and was killed in the Holocaust after his siblings had emigrated to America.

Mario LangElisabeth HarnikThe Jazz at Holmes Series will present two internationally reknowned musicians in free concerts Nov. 6 and 13. The Nov. 6 performance will feature Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik, perhaps best known for her piano improvisations. On Nov. 13 Jazz at Holmes will welcome legendary New York saxophonist David Liebman and his Quartet.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a new energy, environmental engineering and biomedical engineering building on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis was held Wednesday, Oct. 29, on the parking lot adjacent to Whitaker Hall, near the corner of Skinker Boulevard and Forest Park Parkway. The building, which will be named in honor of Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer, will be east of and adjoining to Whitaker Hall, home of the biomedical engineering department.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a new energy and environmental engineering building on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis will be held Wednesday, Oct. 29, on the parking lot adjacent to Whitaker Hall, near the corner of Skinker Boulevard and Forest Park Parkway, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The ceremony will begin at 1 p.m., with the groundbreaking scheduled for 1:45 p.m. The building, which will be named in honor of Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer, will be east of and adjoining to Whitaker Hall, home of the biomedical engineering department.

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. The annual competition — hosted this year by the Department of Music — will take place Nov. 6 to 9 in the department’s 560 Music Center. The faculty concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8.

Allyson Gibson, a doctoral student in physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a prestigious P.E.O. Scholar Award for the 2008-09 academic year. She was one of 85 recipients selected from more than 640 applicants from the United States and Canada. The $15,000 merit-based award is given to women who are either pursuing a doctoral-level degree or engaged in postgraduate study or research who show potential to make significant contributions to their fields of study.

Frank FlinnDemocratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is telling the Catholics in his audiences that St. Thomas Aquinas had a different teaching on abortion than the current pope and his immediate predecessors. He’s right, says Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., adjunct professor of religious studies in Arts & Sciences. Flinn is author of the Encyclopedia of Catholicism (2007).

Dancer, choreographer, and creative/performance artist Liz Lerman, together with WUSTL faculty, will participate in a panel discussion on the intersection of art and community. The Assembly Series program, “Still Crossing: Expressing Identities, Building Communities” begins at 4 p.m. October 30 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Poet Jean Valentine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23. The talk — part of The Writing Program’s Fall Reading Series — is free and open to the public. The lecture takes place in Dunker […]