Arts & Sciences

Here is the thing about envisioning someone who specializes in Chaucer. You automatically imagine that he wears a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, smokes a pipe and speaks slowly, deliberately and in a monotone. What a relief then, to find out that David A. Lawton, Ph.D., professor and chair of the English department and […]

Scientists at Washington University have received a five-year, $4.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to explore new ways to produce, distribute and use radionuclides to detect cancers.

GibsonRenowned literary theorist Stanley Fish will deliver the keynote address for Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors, Washington University’s third annual faculty book colloquium, at 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building Formal Lounge. The event also will include readings by Judith Evans Grubbs, professor of classics in Arts & Sciences, and James L. Gibson, the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Servies“Taunting the Monster”Washington University Dance Theatre (WUDT), the annual showcase of professionally choreographed works performed by student dancers, will present Dancescape, its 2004 concert, Dec. 3-5 in Edison Theatre. The concert will feature 30 dancers, selected by audition, performing seven works by faculty and guest choreographers.

Courtesy photoMary Jo BangPoet Mary Jo Bang, associate professor of English in Arts & Sciences, will read from her latest collection, The Eye is Like a Strange Balloon (2004), at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, for The Writing Program Reading Series.

Recognized as one of America’s finest writers of short fiction, she will host a colloquium on the craft of fiction and a reading of her work.

Keith Boykin, a prominent author and speaker, was a special assistant to the president and director of specialty media in the Clinton administration.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will perform music of Rossini, Liszt and Tchaikovsky at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14. The performance is free and open to the public and takes place in the university’s Graham Chapel, just north of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-4841.

A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis has found surprisingly tough enzymes in a bacterium that “just says no to acid.” Acid resistance is a valued trait for both pills and human pathogens. The bacterium Acetobacter aceti makes unusually acid-resistant enzymes in spades, which could make the organism a source for new enzyme products and new directions in protein chemistry.

Sandra Day O’ConnorPresident Bush’s re-election, coupled with strengthened Republican control of the Senate, has fueled speculation that the next four years could bring about dramatic shifts in political composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. While Bush may be poised to push the court in a more conservative direction, a forthcoming study suggests his ability to make dramatic ideological changes still hinges on whether he has the opportunity to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.