Arts & Sciences

New and improved consumer goods, better planes, vehicles, and electronics, and new biomedical products that could lead to better pharmaceuticals and innovative medical devices are among the objectives of a new, interdisciplinary center housed in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The Center for Materials Innovation, (CMI) located in the refurbished basement of Crow Hall, will enable collaborators from across campus to make basic and applied advances in materials research, eventually touching many aspects of daily life.

Amy BloomAmy Bloom, author of NORMAL: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18 and 25, for The Writing Program Reading Series at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sigrid EstradaChapman, lecturer in film & media studies, co-wrote HBO’s *Live From Baghdad*.Richard Chapman, lecturer in screenwriting in Washington University’s Film & Media Studies Program in Arts & Sciences, has been nominated for a 2003 Emmy Award for the HBO original film Live From Baghdad.

Wang Haichen, *Garden Blues* (2002), porcelainChina boasts one of the world’s oldest and richest pottery traditions, yet only in recent years have Chinese ceramicists begun to emerge as individual “studio artists,” rather than collective practitioners. The Washington University School of Art’s Des Lee Gallery explores this burgeoning “new age” in Chinese Ceramics Today: Between Tradition and Contemporary Expression, an exhibition of works by 23 contemporary ceramicists from mainland China and Hong Kong.

In recognition of the Sesquicentennial theme “Treasuring the Past, Shaping the Future,” Arts & Sciences is hosting four “Conversations.”

The show features more than 50 works by 23 of China’s finest contemporary practitioners; it opens with a reception from 6-8 p.m. today.

Declan Kiberd, one of the world’s preeminent scholars of modern Irish literature, will launch the University’s fall Writing Program Reading Series in Arts & Sciences with a pair of talks. On Sept. 9, Declan will speak on “Ireland: A Case of Masked Modernity?” On Sept. 11, he will address “The City in Irish Writing.” Both […]

Mary ButkusA roundtable discussion Aug. 28 commemorated the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

FriedmanThomas Friedman, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, best-selling author and foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, will present his talk, “What Kind of International Borders Will Exist in the 21st Century?” on September 17, 2003, at 11 a.m. in the Athletic Complex Field House, located north of Francis Field on the Washington University campus. Friedman’s lecture is also the Arts & Sciences Sesquicentennial lecture. Assembly Series lectures are free and open to the public. Parking will be limited; check the Assembly Series website for overflow parking information.

FriedmanSome of the nation’s top scholars will gather in the coming academic year at Washington University to have “Conversations” on such topics as: What kind of international borders will exist in the 21st century? What is the future of freedom? Who are “public intellectuals”? And what purpose do they serve? Where did modern humans come from? In recognition of the sesquicentennial theme, “Treasuring the Past, Shaping the Future,” Arts & Sciences is hosting a series of four “Conversations” among scholars whose disciplines range from anthropology and biology to law and women’s studies. Thomas L. Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, best-selling author and foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, will participate in the first “Conversation,” to be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 17 in the university’s Graham Chapel.