Events

‘Giovanni’s Room’ with Carl Phillips

Organized by A Public Space, this public collective reading of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room by Carl Phillips takes place September 17–28. 

We will read slowly, at a pace of about 15 pages each day, and finish each book within two weeks. Every morning, we will share observations from the writer hosting the current book club on our Twitter and Instagram accounts. Readers will take the conversation from there—offering their insights, sharing research, asking questions. The ongoing conversation will be organized using #APStogether. 

See dates/pages here: https://apublicspace.org/events/detail/carl-phillips-james-baldwin

On September 29, 6:30 pm CDT join a virtual Zoom discussion with Phillips and your co-readers. Follow the link below to register.

Faculty Book Talk: Rebecca Wanzo

This Washington University Libraries Faculty Book Talk will feature Professor Rebecca Wanzo (chair and professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), who will discuss her newest book, The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging (New York University Press, 2020).

Revealing the long aesthetic tradition of African American cartoonists who have made use of racist caricature as a Black diasporic art practice, Professor Wanzo demonstrates how these artists have resisted histories of visual imperialism and their legacies.

Architectural History and Academia

The featured panelists will explore several questions: What are the challenges and opportunities for architectural history today? What is the role of historical knowledge today? What is the future of advanced research degrees such as MPhil/PhD degrees? How does architectural history best fit into a research university and/or professional school?

Panelists:

• Barry Bergdoll, Columbia University
• Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University
• Arindam Dutta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Joan Ockman, University of Pennsylvania

After the Outbreak: Narrative, Infrastructure, and Pandemic Time

Presented in conjunction with the Medical Humanities minor at WashU, our first Zoom-based Americanist Dinner Forum of the fall semester will feature Professor Sari Altschuler of Northeastern University. Dr. Altschuler will present “After the Outbreak: Narrative, Infrastructure, and Pandemic Time,” which examines COVID-19 and considers what we might learn from people who lived with truly global pandemics of this sort in the past. After the talk, Dr. Altschuler will be joined in discussion by AMCS Director Dr. Lerone Martin and Medical Humanities-affiliated scholars Dr. Corinna Treitel (History) and Dr. Jennifer Arch (English).

Student-Faculty Discussion on Classics, Race, and Antiracism

Public Tour: Multiplied–Edition MAT

Join us for live, interactive tours on Zoom. Student educators design and lead virtual tours featuring several artworks in the Kemper Art Museum collection or in special exhibitions, showing images of the artworks through screen sharing and answering participant questions.

On October 3, Jessie Smith (Arts & Sciences ’22) discusses a selection of works from the special exhibition Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959–1964.

This hour-long tour is free, but registration is required.

The Birth of Democracy in Ancient Athens: A View from the Graves

A virtual lecture via ZOOM and YOUTUBE.

In use during the Archaic and early Classical period from the 8th to the 4th centuries B.C., Phaleron is one of the largest ancient cemeteries ever unearthed on the Greek mainland. More than a thousand burials have yielded the remains of working-class Athenian families, including a large number of individuals who met violent ends. Bringing together a wide array of cutting-edge analytical methods, this study will open a new window on the lives of everyday Athenians, who lived and died during the turbulent period in Greek history that saw the development of the Athenian city-state and the birth of democracy.

Jane Ellen Buikstra is Regents’ Professor of Anthropology and Founding Director of the Center for Bioarchaeological Research at Arizona State University. She is a pioneer in the field of bioarchaeology, the application of biological methods to the study of archaeology. Her work has defined the field and her research encompasses bioarchaeology, paleopathology, forensic anthropology and paleodemography. She has published more than 20 books and is presently investigating the evolutionary history of ancient tuberculosis in the Americas via archaeologically-recovered pathogen DNA. She is currently Project Director for the Phaleron Bioarchaeological Project in Athens, Greece.

This event is cosponsored by the Hellenic Government–Karakas Family Foundation Professorship in Greek Studies, University of Missouri–St. Louis; the Departments of Classics and Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis; the Classical Club of St. Louis; and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court