Arts & Sciences

Terrell CreativeTo commemorate the 150th anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision, Washington University will host a national symposium on “The Dred Scott Case and its Legacy: Race, Law, and the Struggle for Equality,” on March 1-3. The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will begin with a keynote address by the Honorable Michael A. Wolff, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, at 4 p.m. on March 1 in Graham Chapel. Wolff will discuss “Race, Law, and the Struggle for Equality: Missouri Law, Politics, and the Dred Scott Case.” Panel discussions on Friday and Saturday in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall will examine the case and its legacy, from the Civil War to the present.

Courtesy photoJo LabanyiJo Labanyi, professor of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University, will speak on “Facts and Fictions: Knowledge, Delinquency and Madness in Late 19-Century Spain” Feb. 27 as part of the Center for the Humanities’s 2007 Faculty Fellows’ Lecture and Workshop Series. The following day Labanyi will lead a workshop on the rigid ordering of gender in 19th-century Spain.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will present a concert of music drawn from theatrical works at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 25, in the university’s Graham Chapel. Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciecnces, will conduct the concert, which highlights Aaron Copland’s music for the ballet Rodeo. Also on the program are the “Masquerade Suite” of Aram Khachaturian and Frederick Delius’s “The Walk to the Paradise Garden.”

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computers, has issued a challenge to the music industry, saying Apple would support an open online music marketplace if the four-largest music companies would drop the use of digital-rights management software — the technology that prevents the copying of music sold online. Jobs’ challenge, which some consider shocking, is just the latest brick to fall in the inevitable collapse of a legal wall that since 1999 has been obstructing technological progress and preventing people from enjoying more and better music at a lower price, suggests Michele Boldrin, Ph.D., an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the hidden costs of intellectual property rights protections.

Terrell CreativeMarch 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s momentous Dred Scott decision that denied full American citizenship to African-Americans and gave legal sanction to a racial hierarchy that would undermine the most basic principles of American justice. Experts say the anniversary should be an opportunity for deep national reflection on enduring issues of race and justice. In honor of this landmark case, Washington University in St. Louis will host a conference, titled “The Dred Scott Case and Its Legacy: Race, Law, and the Struggle for Equality,” from March 1-3.

Eric ChouShow me the money.It’s been said by everyone from Cyndi Lauper to Alex Rodriguez that “money changes everything.” Now psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis have published a paper to support that claim. Studying delayed gratification and risk, the psychologists found that people are more likely to wait on collecting full payment for a non-consumable monetary reward than they are for any of three consumable rewards — beer, candy and soda.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 2004Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s recently announced plan to nationalize the telecommunications and electricity industries in his country sent shockwaves through the boardrooms of multinational corporations with large holdings in Latin America. While some see Chavez as the leading edge of a “socialist revolution,” research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests this latest nationalization push is nothing more than politics as usual, part of a predictable pattern of political tensions that often arise when corporations make large foreign investments.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesNoga Landau as AgnesConservative versus liberal, political versus personal, father versus daughter. Such are the forces at play in civil disobedience, a world premiere drama by Carter Lewis, playwright-in-residence in Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. Commissioned by the PAD, the play centers on the relationship between Fred, a conservative justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and his daughter Marlee, a social activist and Manhattan bookstore owner.

KWUR (90.3 FM), Washington University’s student-run radio station, will launch KWUR WEEK, a series of on-campus events, with a free concert by four of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s newest—and youngest—players. The program will include string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms.

A.G. Edwards Inc., the St. Louis-based national investment firm, will establish the A.G. Edwards Visiting Professorship in Entrepreneurship.