Arts & Sciences

The St. Louis region aims to become a great biotechnology hub, attracting new businesses and industry from all over the country. If that dream is to become a reality, we need people highly skilled in mathematics and science. A research project by the Center for Inquiry in Science Teaching and Learning (CISTL) at Washington University in St. Louis suggests human resources in science may not be coming from local school districts unless significant investment is forthcoming.

More than 30 Washington University faculty, administrators and staff will participate in science and technology presentations when the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific organization, holds its annual meeting Feb. 16-20 at both the America’s Center and Renaissance Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis.

Poet Linda Gregerson, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will present a pair of events Feb. 23 and March 2. Gregerson is the author of three collections of poetry: Fire in the Conservatory (1982), The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep (1996) and Waterborne (2002).

Courtesy photoMarjorie GarberGleaned from her popular lectures covering three decades, Garber’s 2004 book, Shakespeare After All, offers fresh meditations on the Bard’s plays in an erudite and entertaining fashion. She is a professor of English and director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in Edison Theatre.

Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*Much Ado About Nothing*Rapier wit and cutting observation; lies, laughter and love, with a stiff dose of betrayal. Such is the emotional arsenal deployed for Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare’s strategic guide to the “merry war” between the sexes. This month, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present Much Ado as its spring Mainstage production.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will perform music of Ernest Bloch, Peter I. Tchaikovsky and Gay Holmes Spears at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, in Graham Chapel. Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator for the Department of Music, conducts the 70-plus-member orchestra.

She’s the first of six speakers appearing this spring as part of The Center for the Humanities Faculty Fellows’ Lecture and Workshop Series.

Their project investigates the relationship between power and self-presentation by asking women to respond to a seemingly simple question.

Dhomhnaill has been hailed by the Irish Literary Supplement as the “most acclaimed Gaelic poet of the century”; Akins is the author of four novels.

Fiction writer Ellen Akins will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, for the Writing Program Reading Series. Akins is the author of four novels, including “Home Movie: A Novel” (1988), “Little Women: A Novel” (1990) and “Hometown Brew” (1998), as well as a collection of short stories, “World Like a Knife” (1991).