Arts & Sciences

Wind power is one practical alternative to petroleum.The director of a sustainable energy research center at Washington University in St. Louis is challenging the next president of the United States to set goals in energy research and implementation. “I would like to see the next president of the United States set a similar goal to President Kennedy’s from 1961 — to put a man on the moon and to bring him back to Earth by the end of the decade,” says Himadri B. Pakrasi, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

One of the nation’s most celebrated journalists, Carl Bernstein, will deliver the Elliot Stein Lecture in Ethics at 4 p.m. Thursday, October 23, in Graham Chapel. The Assembly Series lecture, titled “Public Ethics: The Responsibilities of Elected Officials,” is free and open to the public and is being co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values in Arts & Sciences.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesBiden vs. Palin vs… Throttlebottom? Though the vice presidential debate may be over, the political fun continues at Washington University later this month with Of Thee I Sing, the classic musical satire of American public life.

Within a month of publishing his notorious collection “Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil),” (1857), the French poet Charles Baudelaire was charged with insulting public decency and ordered to remove six works from subsequent editions. Yet Baudelaire’s poems, which center on themes of eroticism and mortality, would influence generations of writers, from Arthur Rimbaud […]

Harold Blumenfeld, professor emeritus in the Department of Music, has recorded “Vers Sataniques (Satanic Verse),” a major new piece that will be featured as part of a mixed media concert Oct. 13.

Novelist John Brandon, a 2001 MFA graduate of Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16. Brandon is the author of Arkansas, a darkly comic novel about rural drug-distribution, which was published last spring by McSweeney’s Rectangulars imprint.

Who can ignore this 500-pound gorilla?It’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. “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.”

When the red, red robin comes bob, bob bobbin’ along, think West Nile Virus (WNV).This one’s for the birds. A study by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis shows that the more diverse a bird population is in an area, the less chance humans have of exposure to West Nile Virus (WNV). Now, let’s hear it for the birds. “The bottom line is that where there are more bird species in your backyard, you have much lower risk of contracting West Nile fever,” said Brian Allan, doctoral candidate in biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Session musician, commercial recording engineer, live sound engineer, record producer, bestselling author and psychologist Daniel Levitin visits the WUSTL campus Wednesday, Oct. 8, in Graham Chapel for the Assembly Series. The lecture, originally slated for a 4 p.m. start on the Assembly Series calendar, has been moved up to an 11 a.m. start. Levitin’s talk, […]

Novelist Zachary Lazar, author of “Sway” (2008) and “Aaron Approximately” (1998), will read from his work 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The talk — part of The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Room […]