Past Events

Public Tour: Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings

Student educators lead interactive tours of this season’s exhibition Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings, 1988–2022: Returns, Revision, Inventions. The exhibition features studio-based paintings by contemporary German artist Katharina Grosse, internationally known for painting large-scale, on-site works and explores the artist’s experimentation with the physical, optical and aesthetic qualities of color and paint on canvas.

On ‘Death of a Salesman’: A Conversation with Ron Himes

In the classic Death of Salesman, Arthur Miller explores the disillusionment of the American Dream and the toll it takes on all aspects of life for traveling salesman Willy Loman and his family. The Black Rep will be performing this seminal work January 11-29, 2023, at Washington University’s Edison Theater in a production directed by Jacqueline Thompson, with company founder and artistic director Ron Himes in the role of Willy Loman. Join Ron Himes, BS ’78, for a conversation about the production, the Black Rep and this moment in American theater. This program is offered in partnership with Washington University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Ron Himes is the founder and producing director of the Saint Louis Black Repertory Company, which has developed a national reputation for staging quality productions from an African-American perspective. Himes founded the Saint Louis Black Repertory Company in 1976 while still a student at Washington University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 2003, Himes was appointed the first Henry E. Hampton, Jr. Artist-in-Residence at Washington University, a joint appointment of the Performing Arts and African American Studies departments.

Public Tour: Materials and Methods

Student educators lead interactive tours of works in the permanent collection that incorporate various artistic methods and materials, including experimental processes, unusual materials and archival research in works by such artists as Torkwase Dyson, Max Ernst and Rivane Neuenschwander.

Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration: Beloved Community

The 36th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration honors the legacy of Dr. King and the impact he has made on those who carry the torch for humanity. Washington University Chancellor Andrew D. Martin, Provost Beverly Wendland and Rev. Callista Isabelle, Washington University director for religious, spiritual and ethical life, will provide remarks. The commemoration includes performances by Black Anthology, the Washington University student run production group and the Washington University Concert Choir. A reception in the Danforth University Center (DUC) follows the program. The event is free and open to the public.

Artist Talk: Chakaia Booker

Chakaia Booker discusses her installation Shaved Portions, on view outside the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at the intersection of Skinker Blvd. and Brookings Drive, contextualizing it within her recent body of work. 

Chakaia Booker (American, b. 1953) earned a BA in sociology from Rutgers University (1976) and an MFA from the City College of New York (1993). Her public art commissions include Millennium Park, Chicago; Garment District Alliance, New York; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Her work is in more than forty public collections, and she has exhibited across the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. She is the recipient of grants, fellowships, and awards from numerous organizations, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; American Academy of Arts and Letters; and Joan Mitchell Foundation; among many others. She lives in New York City and works in New York and Allentown, PA.

Why Institutions Matter: Religious Perspectives on Building and Sustaining Institutions in a Fractured Society

This dialogue between some of the nation’s foremost thinkers on institutions and religious pluralism will focus on the challenges and opportunities of building and sustaining civic institutions in a polarized society. Speakers include Richard Garnett, Notre Dame Law School; Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution; Kristen Deede Johnson, Western Seminary; and Yuval Levin, American Enterprise Institute. The panel will be moderated by John Inazu, who holds a joint appointment with the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the School of Law.

Richard W. Garnett is the Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law at University of Notre Dame Law School. He teaches and writes about the freedoms of speech, association, and religion and constitutional law more generally. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding the role of religious believers and beliefs in politics and society. 

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution. He is the author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize. His first book, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East, was named a Foreign Affair, Best Book of 2014.

Kristen Deede Johnson is the G.W. and Edna Haworth Professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership and the Dean and Vice President of academic affairs at Western Theological Seminary. Her teaching and scholarship engage areas of theology, discipleship and formation, justice, culture and political theory. In partnership with International Justice Mission, she and co-author Bethany Hanke Hoang recently wrote the award-winning The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance. In 2018, Kristen was named as one of “10 New or Lesser-Known Female Theologians Worth Knowing” by Christianity Today. 

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. 

John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion and holds a joint appointment in the School of Law and the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. Inazu’s scholarship focuses on the first amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and related questions of legal and political theory. 

Public Tour: Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings

Student educators lead interactive tours of this season’s exhibition Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings, 1988–2022: Returns, Revision, Inventions. The exhibition features studio-based paintings by contemporary German artist Katharina Grosse, internationally known for painting large-scale, on-site works and explores the artist’s experimentation with the physical, optical and aesthetic qualities of color and paint on canvas.

‘The Rule of Four’ by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason

At this book club, we will discuss The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. On the eve of graduation, two friends are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. But when a longtime student of the book is murdered just hours later, a chilling cycle of deaths and revelations begins.

The book club will begin with a presentation on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the real-life book that inspired The Rule of Four, followed by a discussion of the novel.

Global Indian, Nubile Indian: Caste and Marriage in the Making of the Indian Diaspora

In the MLA tradition of approaching a theme from multiple perspectives, our speakers address bridges and divides locally, internationally, and even across species.

Bridging Divides

The current presidential administration began with a commitment to bridging political divides, even offering physical bridges in the form of an infrastructure bill to help meet that goal. Locally, the team at Health Equity Works has studied inequity created by geographical divide resulting from conscious choices to create a segregated city, and then explored recommendations and activities that dismantle regional divides.

The MLA lecture series is co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The series takes place every Saturday in February over Zoom.

From Darkness to Light: Examining Oppression and Liberation Through Poetry

The power and impact of poetry is on the rise, as a way for our nation to turn inward to understand our social, political, and economic inequities. Join Erica Bumpers as she explores the writings “Hanging Fire” by Audre Lord and “And Perhaps That Made Her Beautiful” by Morgan Harper Nichols, and their relevance to the lived experiences of today’s youth who face a society resistant to change.

This presentation is part of the Brown School’s recognition of Black History Month.

Register online to receive Zoom information on the morning of the event. You can also join us during the live stream.

Super-intelligence, Frankenstein, and Post-humanism: AI Ethics Beyond Data and Algorithmic Bias

Moving beyond the contemporary debates centering on data and algorithmic bias, join Ruopeng An as he discusses the philosophical and practical issues concerning AI ethics in the future.

Do AI's have sentience or awareness, and if so, do we want/need to treat AI's as moral agents and offer them rights? How can we learn to coexist with AI (super)intelligence? Do we have a "third way” besides technological singularity (and resulting apocalypse) and trans-humanism (superhuman)?

This presentation is part of the Brown School’s Artificial Intelligence in the Social Sciences Series.

Returning Home: Repatriation of Jewish Books Confiscated During WWII

In 2021, the Library of the Jewish Museum in Prague contacted Washington University Libraries to learn more about books in the Brisman Collection of Jewish Studies bearing the book stamp of the Library of the Jewish Religious Community in Prague. Both institutions worked together to prove that the books had been confiscated by the Nazis during World War II and to repatriate these stolen items to their rightful home.

From 4-5:30 pm, Hillel Kieval, Anika Walke, and Cassie Brand will give short presentations discussing Jewish books in the context of World War II and the process of repatriation, followed by a conversation moderated by Erin McGlothlin. A reception will follow the discussion.

Gallery Talk: New on View in Photography

Molly Moog, curatorial assistant at the Kemper Art Museum, discusses two newly opened photography installations. The first highlights travel photography taken primarily for American and European audiences by commercial studios in Italy, Japan, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The second examines the works of Martín Chambi and Edward Sheriff Curtis, who carried out influential photographic practices at different latitudes of the Americas in the early twentieth century. The juxtaposition of Chambi and Curtis’s images creates a context for dialogue about the photography of Indigenous communities under the conditions of settler colonialism and during rapid processes of modernization and urbanization in the Americas.

Change Gon’ Come

Black Anthology aims to tell stories about the Black experience. Our hope is that viewers are immersed, become a part of that experience, and are motivated to learn more. This year’s play will bring to light the struggles African Americans face in their everyday lives and in neighborhoods. We get to see firsthand generations live through a seemingly similar cycle.

There will be a preshow panel at 6:15 pm each night.

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: Stories that Win

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

More Than Just Entertainment: The Politics of Branson’s Tourism Industry and Ethical Questions for Scholars

In the MLA tradition of approaching a theme from multiple perspectives, our speakers address bridges and divides locally, internationally, and even across species.

Bridges & Divides

The current presidential administration began with a commitment to bridging political divides, even offering physical bridges in the form of an infrastructure bill to help meet that goal. Locally, the team at Health Equity Works has studied inequity created by geographical divide resulting from conscious choices to create a segregated city, and then explored recommendations and activities that dismantle regional divides.

The MLA lecture series is co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The series takes place every Saturday in February over Zoom.

Anti-oppressive and De-colonial Approaches to Community Engagement in St. Louis

Against a backdrop of de-colonial challenges, what should be the role of anti-oppressive community work practice? Join Durrell Smith, who has over a decade of experience actively combating institutionalized racism, as he identifies anti-oppressive and de-colonial approaches to community engagement. We will discuss guidance, lessons learned, and practical tips to build healthier communities in the St. Louis region.

This presentation is part of the Brown School’s recognition of Black History Month.

Register online to receive Zoom information on the morning of the event. You can also join us during the live stream.

Jan Wagner Reading & Discussion

In this virtual reading and discussion, Max Kade Visiting Writer Jan Wagner will present his work in English translation. Wagner is a German poet, essayist, and translator. His collections of poems include Guerickes Sperling, Achtzehn Pasteten, Australien, and Regentonnenvariationen, for which he was awarded the Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair. The Art of Topiary is the most recent translation of Wagner’s work into English.

The editor of two influential anthologies of German language poetry, including, with the poet Björn Kuhligk, Poetry of the Now: 74 Voices, Wagner is also the German translator of several British and American poets, including James Tate, Matthew Sweeney, and Charles Simic. He is the recipient of the Mondsee Poetry Award, the Anna Seghers Award, the Ernst Meister Award for Poetry, the Mörike Preis, and the first Arno Reinfrank Award. In 2017, he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. He lives in Berlin.

RDE Faculty Retreat Spring 2023: Community engagement

RDE’s 2023 workshop is for Washington University humanities scholars who seek to incorporate community engagement in their teaching, research and service.

Sessions will:

• emphasize the ethics and process of community engagement and guide participants through designing a mutually beneficial and reciprocal project or course;  
• introduce local experts, on-campus resources and fruitful models of engaged humanities projects; and
• feature frank conversations with community members about the power dynamics and practical aspects of community engaged projects.

Participants will leave the workshop with a working knowledge of best practices for community engagement as well as a draft sketch for a community engaged project of their own design.

Click on the button below for details and registration. Please register by February 1, 2023.
 

Legacies of (De)segregated Medicine: Exhibit Opening and Lecture with Dr. Ezelle Sanford, III

Here and Next: Igniting Imagination & Creative Collaboration

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: Trust and Public Health

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: Police Body Camera Metadata

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

The Importance of Racial Socialization Messages in the Lives of African-American Youth

In the MLA tradition of approaching a theme from multiple perspectives, our speakers address bridges and divides locally, internationally, and even across species.

Bridges & Divides

The current presidential administration began with a commitment to bridging political divides, even offering physical bridges in the form of an infrastructure bill to help meet that goal. Locally, the team at Health Equity Works has studied inequity created by geographical divide resulting from conscious choices to create a segregated city, and then explored recommendations and activities that dismantle regional divides.

The MLA lecture series is co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The series takes place every Saturday in February over Zoom.

In Conversation with Michelle Alexander

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics is honored to host Professor Michelle Alexander for a public conversation on the state of legal and social movements against mass incarceration. Since the publication in 2010 of Alexander’s sea-changing book The New Jim Crow, millions more Americans have been incarcerated in prisons and jails, sometimes held for years without a trial. But American conversations about incarceration have changed, with growing abolitionist movements as well as state and federal initiatives for carceral reform. Alexander’s work has done much to bring these issues to light.

Professor Fannie Bialek will ask Alexander about the state of legal and social movements for carceral reform and prison abolition and their invigoration of religious activism for social change. There will also be time for audience Q&A and a reception immediately following in nearby Umrath Lounge.

We hope you will join us in person or online for this Danforth Distinguished Lecture. Graham Chapel is open seating and doors will open at 6:00 p.m.

Free and open to all.

Public Lecture: Sarita Sundar

At Hanno, Sarita Sundar combines 30+ years of working with brand strategy and design solutions with her academic training in museum studies. She engages in critical inquiries into how culture engages with the visual, ranging from research into Indian vernacular typography (“Indians don’t like White Space,”  2016) to studies of intangible culture in performance practices (The Goddess and her Lieutenant: objects systems at a village festival,  2016).

As part of a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Fellowship (August 2022 to May 2023), Sundar co-taught a course called “Visualizing India” at the history department of the University of Vermont along with her faculty host, Abigail McGowan. Her project as part of the fellowship examines the intersectional design histories between the U.S. and India. 

Sundar holds an M.Des. in visual communications from the National Institute of Design (NID) and a master’s in museum studies from the University of Leicester (2016). She was founding partner at an award-winning multidisciplinary design company, Trapeze, for a decade before moving her focus to her research interests at Hanno.

Sundar is visiting faculty at the National Institute of Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Srishti Manipal School of Design and Technology, and Indian Institute of Craft Development. 

A Special Premiere Preview Screening of the Movie Why Is Mona Lisa Smiling? The Re-imagination of the Corporation

Join the WashU Alumni Association and Power of Arts & Sciences for a look at the current state of the modern corporation and a glimpse of what the future might hold for these organizations. The evening begins with a special premiere preview screening of Why Is Mona Lisa Smiling? The Re-imagination of the Corporation, a documentary film produced by Arts & Sciences alumnus Brad Siegel, AB ’79. The film is co-produced by Brand New World Studios and FORTUNE Media.

Black Women in Media - Missouri History Museum

African Modernism in America

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: The Storytelling Lab: Bridging Science, Technology and Creativity

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: Improving Data Integration Techniques

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

Panel Discussion: Collecting and Exhibiting Modern African Art

As part of the opening festivities for African Modernism in America, exhibition co-curators Perrin Lathrop, assistant curator of African art at the Princeton University Art Museum, and Jamaal Sheats, gallery director and curator, and professor of art at Fisk University, are joined by Bukky Gbadegesin, associate professor of art history at Saint Louis University, for a discussion exploring histories of collecting and displaying modern African art in the United States, including the 1961 landmark exhibition Art from Africa of Our Time organized by the Harmon Foundation and the role of Fisk University in exhibiting African artists of the mid-20th century.

Germany’s Forgotten Genocide: A film screening and discussion of Kavena Hambira’s ‘Nuh-Mi-Bee-Uhn’

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum will present the film Nuh-Mi Bee-Uhn, directed by Kavena Hambira. The film “focuses on the twentieth century’s first genocide—the Herero and Nama Genocide, carried out by Germany in 1905 in his family’s native Namibia. Hambira bridges geography and time to describe the indelible and far-reaching impacts of the genocide and the ongoing struggle for reparations and reconciliation.” The film will be accompanied by a discussion with Hambira and his colleague, Miriam Gleckman-Krut, both of whom are artist-scholars-in residence at the Memory for the Future Studiolab at Washington University. The discussion will examine the linkages between the history and memory of this and other genocides and the Holocaust. Registration required; see website.

Virtual Book Club: The Book of Madness and Cures

In the world of 16th-century Venice, medicine is predominantly the profession of men. Yet Gabriella Mondini, herself the daughter of a renowned physician, manages to make her way into the ranks of practitioners — until her father disappears in the midst of researching his encyclopedia on disease. Her position in jeopardy and guided by the letters he left behind, Gabriella sets out to find her father, keeping her own medical notes on diseases and treatment as she follows the trail through Europe.

A presentation of materials related to medicine in early modern Europe will precede the discussion.

Public Tour: Power of Place

Student educators lead interactive tours of the permanent collection designed to prompt discussion and reflection on the power of place in relationship to works by such artists as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Torkwase Dyson, and Martín Chambi, as well as early travel photography.

‘The First World Festival of Negro Arts’ Screening & Discussion

Join us to open the Washington University African Film Festival with a screening of The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966), the official documentary of the Festival Mondial des Arts Negrès (FESMAN) held in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966. Over 2,000 artists, dancers, intellectuals, performers, and writers from Africa and the African diaspora gathered to celebrate Black culture in the newly independent nation of Senegal. Director, producer, actor, and writer William Greaves documented this historic event that included exhibitions of classical, modern, and contemporary African art, performances and theatrical productions, and a colloquium of philosophers, authors, and cultural critics.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Baba Badji, postdoctoral associate in Comparative Literature, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University, and faculty from the Department of African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences.

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: Mindfulness, Science, and Practice

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

Future Fridays - The Transdisciplinary Futures Initiative: The Storytelling Lab: Black Joy Collaborative

The Graduate Center is partnering with the Arts & Sciences Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures initiative to host informal lunches where graduate students can connect with faculty leading the initiatives. 

The History and Politics of Birth Control

Seanna Leath, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University, will discuss the history and politics of birth control, with a particular focus on Black women and reproductive justice. Reproductive justice (RJ) refers to: (1) the right not to have a child; (2) the right to have a child; and (3) the right to raise and nurture children in safe and healthy environments. She will urge audience members to consider how we can move towards a future where self-determination, healing justice and community care inform our conversations, social practices and governmental policies around Black women’s reproductive rights. Leath is a Black feminist scholar and community-based researcher whose expertise includes intersectional identity development, Black family socialization processes, and wellness practices among Black women and girls. She directs the Fostering Healthy Identities and Resilience (FHIRe) Collaborative, a research group of Black and Latina students and community partners in Charlottesville and St. Louis, and is a member of the Reproductive Justice Working Group, based at the Washington University Center for the Humanities. In-person and livestream viewing options available.

Working at the Intersection of Art, Activism, and Anti-Carcerality: Sarah Shourd and Shubra Ohri in Conversation

The Washington University Prison Education Project is delighted to present the 2023 Maggie Garb Memorial Lecture, featuring playwright and journalist Sarah Shourd in conversation with Shubra Ohri, an attorney with the Missouri office of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center.

Join us for a discussion of the state of anti-carceral efforts locally and nationally and the role of journalism, art, and public activism in resisting mass incarceration. 

Registration is required for this event. 

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

Join the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics for a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Kertzer about his new book The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler. Marie Griffith, director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, will discuss with Kertzer his research based on newly opened Vatican archives. There will also be time for audience Q&A.

When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him.

In 2020, Pius XII’s archives were finally opened, and David Kertzer — widely recognized as one of the world’s leading Vatican scholars — has been mining this new material ever since, revealing how the pope came to set aside moral leadership in order to preserve his church’s power.

Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents not only from the Vatican, but from archives in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States, The Pope at War paints a new, dramatic portrait of what the pope did and did not do as war enveloped the continent and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews. The book clears away the myths and sheer falsehoods surrounding the pope’s actions from 1939 to 1945, showing why the pope repeatedly bent to the wills of Hitler and Mussolini.

50 Years of Title IX with Vanessa Grigoriadis

Visit University Libraries’ 50 Years of Title IX exhibition and hear from speaker Vanessa Grigoriadis on Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. Refreshments will be served.

‘Left in the Midwest’ Author Talk

Join University Libraries for a virtual book talk about the newly published book Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Hear from contributing authors Clarence Lang, Luke Ritter, and Nina Gilden Seavey. Benjamin Looker, one of the volume’s co-editors, will help moderate the discussion.

Building Bridges not Walls: Applying Lessons from Contemplative Science to Enhance Equity and Inclusion in the Classroom, Clinic and Beyond

Public Tour: Power of Place

Student educators lead interactive tours of the permanent collection designed to prompt discussion and reflection on the power of place in relationship to works by such artists as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Torkwase Dyson, and Martín Chambi, as well as early travel photography.

Aaron Coleman Reading: International Writer's Series 2023

Aaron Coleman (MFA ’15, PhD ’21), whose papers and other materials are now part of the Modern Literature Collection, will read his poetry and translations. Professor Ignacio Infante will introduce Coleman and moderate a brief Q&A after, followed by a light reception. Coleman is featured in the current exhibition Wherein I Am: Highlights from the Aaron Coleman Papers. Co-sponsored by the Center for Literary Arts, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Writing program.

The International Writers Series is a collaboration between the International Writers track of the Program in Comparative Literature and the Washington University Libraries to celebrate new publications of creative works by writers and translators in the Washington University in St. Louis community and beyond.

Free and open to all, registration requested.

Aaron Coleman in Conversation with Mary Jo Bang

Aaron Coleman (MFA ’15, PhD ’21), whose papers and other materials are now part of the Modern Literature Collection, will be in conversation with English professor and poet Mary Jo Bang, whose papers are also part of the Modern Literature Collection. The event will include a light buffet dinner. Coleman is featured in the exhibition Wherein I Am: Highlights from the Aaron Coleman Papers. Co-sponsored by the Center for Literary Arts, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Writing program.

Open to Washington University affiliated faculty, staff, and students. Registration required.

Faculty Book Talk: Todd Decker

Astaire by Numbers uses a quantitative digital humanities approach and production records to reveal how Fred Astaire perfected his film dances on the set, in rehearsal halls, and editing rooms. Todd Decker (Musicology, American Culture Studies, and Film and Media Studies) uses the lens of race, gender and sexuality to re-assess Astaire as an icon of American popular culture.

Join University Libraries for a discussion with Decker. The talk will be followed by a Q&A, and refreshments will be provided.

Tere Dávila in Discussion with Zorimar Rivera Montes

Puerto Rican author Tere Dávila and Zorimar Rivera Montes, assistant professor of Latinx studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures will discuss Dávila’s literary fiction and its relationship to Puerto Rican culture and contemporary global issues. 

International Writers Series: Tere Dávila & Rebecca Hanssens-Reed

Join University Libraries for an evening of fiction in translation with Puerto Rican author Tere Dávila and translator Rebecca Hanssens-Reed. Hanssens-Reed’s translation of Dávila’s Mercedes’s Special Talent won a 2022 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction.

Tere Dávila

Tere Dávila is the recipient of two Puerto Rican National Prizes: for her novel, Nenísimas, and the short story collection Aquí están las instrucciones, both published in 2018. She has also published three other short-fiction collections, children’s books and books on Puerto Rican culture. Her short stories have been translated and featured in international anthologies and literary magazines. In 2017 she received Puerto Rico’s New Voices Award, and in 2015 her short story “El fondillo maravilloso” was adapted into an award-winning short film.

Rebecca Hanssens-Reed

Rebecca Hanssens-Reed is a literary translator and PhD student in the track for international writers.

RE: Worldbuilding through Performance

Diaspora Dialogues: African Art Influence across the Atlantic

Following a self-guided tour of African Modernism in America, join the annual Diaspora Dialogues event, a conversation among Black women in St. Louis organized by Vitendo4Africa and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. International Awareness and Involvement Committee. This year’s theme will center on a transnational discussion of African art and its connections to African American artists, the social and political roles of art in African and African American contexts during the 1950s and 1960s, and the importance of teaching these histories to challenge Western notions of African art. Invited speakers include Erin Falker-Obichigha, artist, art historian, and curator; Bukky Gbadegesin, associate professor of art history at Saint Louis University; Yvonne Osei, artist; and MwazaCarol Thompson-Robinson, artist. The discussion on the social and political roles of art in African and African American contexts continues over a modern Congolese cuisine provided by Lady Lauralie.

Online Chinese-Language Tour: African Modernism in America

线上中文美术导览： 在美国的非洲现代主义

邀请您来和艺术史暨考古学系博士生戴悦共同探索本期展览《African Modernism in America》。本次展览将聚焦于现代非裔艺术家和美籍赞助人、艺术家與文化组织的关系，其中囊括公民权利、去殖民化、和冷战之間环环相扣的历史。《African Modernism in America》陳列了由五十位艺术家分別創作的七十多幅画作，这些经典代表作足以展现非洲1950年代及1960年代的艺术与美国艺术和文化政治的关系。

Join student educator Yue Dai, PhD student in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, for an online tour of this season’s exhibition African Modernism in America. Drawing primarily from Fisk University’s remarkable collection of gifts from the Harmon Foundation, the exhibition examines connections between modern African artists and patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the United States, amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War. The exhibition features more than seventy artworks by fifty artists that exemplify the relationships between the new art that emerged in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s and the art and cultural politics of the U.S.

Public Tour: ‘African Modernism in America’

Student educators lead interactive tours of this season’s exhibition African Modernism in America. Drawing primarily from Fisk University’s remarkable collection of gifts from the Harmon Foundation, the exhibition examines connections between modern African artists and patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the United States, amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War. The exhibition features more than seventy artworks by fifty artists that exemplify the relationships between the new art that emerged in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s and the art and cultural politics of the US.

2023 Peterson Photography Lecture Series: Dr. Krista Thompson

On 24 May 2010, soldiers and police officers—with the aid of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—entered the West Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens in search of Christopher “Dudus” Coke. Coke became a fugitive after the United States sought his extradition. After almost four days, at the end of this operation, Coke remained at large, but at least 69 civilians—mostly young black men—and 3 members of the security forces lay dead and with two others disappeared. Examining photographs, surveillance footage, artistic, and archival projects related to the massacre, Dr. Thompson asks why the hunt for a single fugitive led to the detainment, containment, and killing of so many. The talk discusses strategies for critically reassessing the evidence of things not captured in the widely accepted visual and discursive formations surrounding the event and in narratives of state violence in Jamaica more generally.

‘Target: STL (Vol. 1)’ Screening and Panel

Free and open to all: Screening of the documentary Target: STL (VOL. 1) and discussion featuring director Damien Smith, Ben Phillips and Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor. Target: STL (VOL. 1) tells the story of how the U. S. military conducted secret chemical testing on citizens of St. Louis’ Northside. Told through the eyes of the survivors who bravely share their experiences of being unwitting test subjects. Long before the current scandal of lead poisoning of the water supply of Flint, Michigan, the U.S. Army conducted secret experiments on unknowing residents of northern St. Louis using toxic chemicals. The predominantly African American residents of northern St. Louis are the focus of this film.Target: STL (VOL. 1) shares their disturbing story of how these Cold War experiments occurred and the film examines the actions of the U.S. military that extended beyond the guarantees of public safety promised to U.S. citizens by the Constitution.

Register at this link. 

Presented by Memory for the Future, a studiolab at WashU focused on reparative public memory work.

Ancient Philosophy Colloquium

Thanks to the generous support of the Department of Classics, the Department of Philosophy, and the Center for the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis will be hosting workshops devoted to the study of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.

Public Tour: Power of Place

Student educators lead interactive tours of the permanent collection designed to prompt discussion and reflection on the power of place in relationship to works by such artists as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Torkwase Dyson, and Martín Chambi, as well as early travel photography.

Gerard Sekoto and the International Histories of African Modernism

Joshua Cohen, associate professor of art history at the City University of New York, discusses the life and work of the South African painter Gerard Sekoto (1913–1993), who made vibrant Postimpressionist-style works in the 1940s before relocating permanently to Paris in 1947 — a move that allowed him to distance himself geographically from Apartheid, which began the following year. Living as an artist and musician in exile, Sekoto participated in a series of conferences and exhibitions charged with anticolonial ambitions and Cold War tensions. Sekoto’s tumultuous trajectory both reflects and reveals the international histories of African modernism at midcentury.

Virtual Book Club: ‘The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu’

Join University Libraries for a special National Preservation Week book club as we read the fascinating true story of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer. Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to safety.

Book club will begin with a short presentation on preservation, followed by a discussion of the book.

Collecting Wonders

Beginning in the 16th century in Europe, collectors assembled Wunderkammern, so-called cabinets of curiosity designed to evince wonder and awe. These collections housed weird and sometimes wild conjunctions of the natural and the man-made, the local and the exotic. Claudia Swan, the inaugural Mark Steinberg Weil Professor of Art History at Washington University, will discuss how objects in curiosity cabinets were collected, exchanged, stolen, organized and valued. Free tickets for the on-site program may be reserved in person at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Information Centers or through MetroTix. This lecture will also be livestreamed for free via Zoom; see website to register.

Public Tour: ‘African Modernism in America’

Student educators lead interactive tours of this season’s exhibition African Modernism in America. Drawing primarily from Fisk University’s remarkable collection of gifts from the Harmon Foundation, the exhibition examines connections between modern African artists and patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the United States, amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War. The exhibition features more than seventy artworks by fifty artists that exemplify the relationships between the new art that emerged in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s and the art and cultural politics of the US.

TEMPO Conference

The Maid of McMillan Screening

Wicked Women: White Women as Perpetrators of Mass Violence

The Wicked Women: White Women as Perpetrators of Mass Violence exhibition discusses the connection between whiteness, gender, and violence through women carrying out events and systems of mass violence and discrimination.

By looking at the Holocaust, the Namibian Genocide, the East St. Louis Massacre of 1917, chattel slavery, and white supremacy in conjunction with each other, viewers will learn the role that white women played, and continue to play, in each event and system, as well as how and why these events are connected through broader systems of colonialism and racism. The exhibition focuses on a selection of books, some of which are available to check out from Olin Library.

Victoria Limón curated this exhibition in association with Memory for the Future, a StudioLab and organization that aims to educate the St. Louis community on issues of racism and multidirectional memory.

Organized by University Libraries.

Header image: Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.

Juneteenth Keynote: From New Orleans to Galveston to St. Louis and Beyond

Join us for a riveting nine-generation family migration story from Texas to Missouri. Vanessa Slaughter, a native St. Louisan, will join Jim Vincent of the St.  Louis African American History & Genealogy Society in a fireside chat to trace her family’s legacy to Galveston, Texas, in  the 1860s. Each generation builds on the foundation of love, community, and freedom to give us inspiration to dig into our own family histories and celebrate Juneteenth as a community. The  evening will kick off with a brief presentation about the history and meaning of the Juneteenth holiday by Dr. Geoff K. Ward of Washington University in St. Louis and will end with a live performance by the Community Gospel Choir of St. Louis, inspiring us to look deep into our own family legacies of migration, freedom, and community love.

Fire & Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America

The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition and companion website.

The traveling exhibition explores ways in which meals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes. In the Chesapeake region during the colonial era, European settlers relied upon indentured servants, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans for labor, life-saving knowledge of farming and food acquisition, and to gain economic prosperity. Fire and Freedom looks into life at George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation and the labor of enslaved workers to learn about the ways that meals transcend taste and sustenance.

The National Library of Medicine produced Fire and Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America, guest curated by historian, author, and educator Psyche Williams-Forson, PhD (University of Maryland, College Park).

Virtual Book Club: ‘The Vapors’

Join us for the August WashU Libraries Virtual Book Club to discuss The Vapors by David Hill.

Hot Springs, Arkansas, got its start as a spa town, where people would go to soak in its mineral-rich spring waters to partake in their supposed health benefits. But Hot Springs wasn’t just a retreat for health-minded individuals–at one point it rivaled Las Vegas as America’s premier destination for gambling and nightlife. Hot Springs native Hill pulls back the curtain on the seedier history of this small Arkansas town, offering a fascinating glimpse into an often overlooked part of America.

As Hot Springs’ original claim to fame was its medicinal waters, a short presentation of the history of medicinal bathing (balenology) will precede the discussion of the book.

Free and open to all, registration required for Zoom link.

Organized by the Bernard Becker Medical Library, University Libraries.

Proposal-Writing Information Session & Workshop 2023

Information Session (registration open)

Thursday, August 24, 11 am–12:30 pm
Danforth University Center, Room 276

Roundtable discussion featuring:

• Bill Courtney, Research Development and Administration, Arts & Sciences 
• Nicole Moore, Office of Research Development 
• Nora Kelleher, Office of Foundation Relations
• Peter Kastor, the Samuel K. Eddy Professor in the Department of History and Associate Vice Dean of Research in Humanities, Humanistic Social Sciences, and Creative Practice in Arts & Sciences
• Tili Boon Cuillé, Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Proposal Workshop (registration closed)

Small-workshop group members have been sent an email with their meeting times and locations. Please contact cenhum@wustl.edu if you have not yet received this communication.

Friday, August 18, 12 pm CDT: Proposal submission due date

August 24 or 25: First Review 
Final date and time to be determined by the individual groups

Week of August 28: Revisions
Final date and time to be determined by the individual groups

Follow link below for details and registration. 

Eliza (film screening)

Based upon extraordinary true events, this is the story of Eliza Rone, an enslaved woman who, in 1856, worked for the richest family in St. Louis - the Campbells.

Cinema St. Louis and the Hi-Pointe Theatre are pleased to offer this free screening of the historical short dramatic film “Eliza”, which recently premiered during the 23rd annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase in July. The film won awards for Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Actress Kazia Steele in the lead role. 

The event will also feature a post-film discussion and Q&A with co-director Delisa Richardson, Andy Hahn with the Campbell House Museum, and key cast members: Kazia Steele (“Eliza”), Meg Davis (“Virginia Campbell”), Tom Taylor (“Robert Campbell”), Tammy Duensing (“Lucy Kyle”), and AG Shaw (“John Rone”). The discussion and Q&A will be moderated by Kevin Coleman-Cohen, director of the film "Pretty Boy," which was also a winner of two awards at the Showcase, Best Director and Best Drama.

The event is free and open to the public, but a ticket is required.

Gallery Talk: Exile Art

Tobias Feldmann, PhD student in German and Comparative Literature, discusses archival material and new works on view recently added to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s permanent collection display on exile art, including such primary sources as letters, notes, articles and other personal and official documents. Joined in conversation by Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and chief curator, the talk will give a glimpse into the vast sociopolitical network of World War II exiled artists in the United States, their process of immigrating into the country, and the way these artists and their work were received. Organized by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Guggenheim Fellowship Information Session

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

Willie Mays’ catch. Babe Ruth’s called shot. Kirk Gibson’s limping home run. Moments like these have been described again and again, and in Joe Posnanski’s Why We Love Baseball, they are looked at anew and told from unique perspectives. These are moments from the big and famous to the small and private, experienced by players, teammates and fans. All of them fundamental to the connection fans have with the game they love. $35-$42, includes one book copy. Online viewing, $35, includes one book copy. St. Louis County Library.

Public Tour: Portraiture

Student educators lead interactive tours highlighting diverse approaches to portraiture from different historical moments in the permanent collection galleries. Explore portraits by such artists as Jess T. Dugan, Kehinde Wiley, and Max Beckmann in a range of media.

Chinese-Language Tour: Portraiture

Join student educator Weixun Qu, PhD student in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, for an interactive tour highlighting diverse approaches to portraiture in the permanent collection galleries. Explore portraits by such artists as Jess T. Dugan, Kehinde Wiley, and Ai Weiwei in a range of media.

Auerbach in Istanbul: A Reading from ‘Die Sprache der Sonne’

Matthias Goeritz, distinguished German author and Professor of Practice of Comparative Literature, will give a German-language reading of his critically acclaimed novel Die Sprache der Sonne (C.H. Beck, 2023). Die Sprache der Sonne (The Sun Language) deftly shifts perspectives between present-day Istanbul, where an American journalist looks for traces of her deceased German-Jewish grandmother, and the 1930s, when Istanbul was a haven for German-Jewish intellectuals, and intellectual theory from the profound to the outlandish abounded. The German-language reading and subsequent discussion will highlight the role Istanbul played in fostering German intellectual thought that was sidelined by the Nazi regime. Goeritz will be joined in conversation by Walter Schlect, Subject Librarian for Germanic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, in University Libraries. 

This event will kick off the symposium “Theory as Event: Epistemic Cultures and Humanistic Knowledge Production in Germany Since 1968.”

International Writers Series: Efe Duyan

In this reading and discussion, former Visiting Hurst Professor Efe Duyan returns to St. Louis to present The Behavior of Words, the first book of his poetry translated into English. He will be joined in discussion by Derick Mattern, literary translator and Comparative Literature PhD candidate in the track for international writers.

Duyan was born in Istanbul in 1981. As an internationally recognized poet, his poems have been translated to over twenty-five different languages. His debut novel Başka (Other) was published in 2022. The Behavior of Words was published earlier this year by White Pines Press in a translation by Aron Aji. As an advocate of freedom of expression and creative thinking, he has been an active cultural actor curating international events, workshops, and conferences. He currently teaches architecture in Riga.

Free and open to all, but registration is requested. Organized by University Libraries.

Member and WashU Preview: Adam Pendleton: To Divide By

Kemper Art Museum members and WashU faculty, staff and students are invited to be among the first to view Adam Pendleton: To Divide By, a major exhibition of the artist’s new and recent paintings, drawings and video portraits that together reveal Pendleton’s interest in creating a conversation between mediums, as well as his belief in abstraction’s capacity to destabilize and disrupt.

Q&A with Adam Pendleton

As part of the opening celebrations for Adam Pendleton: To Divide By, the artist Adam Pendleton will be in conversation with Meredith Malone, curator. Pendleton is known for his large-scale paintings, drawings, sculptures and films, many of them informed by Black Dada — his visual inquiry into the relationships between Blackness, abstraction and the avant-garde. This exhibition showcases new paintings, drawings and ceramics, along with two recent film portraits that together reveal Pendleton’s belief in abstraction’s capacity to destabilize and disrupt.

Free and open to the public.

Public opening of the exhibit immediately follows at 6:30 pm. 

Flipping Boxcars

In Cedric Kyles’ Flipping Boxcars, Babe is a charismatic and widely loved man and a gambler with a gift for gab that often gets him out of tricky situations. He’s also a dreamer, something he shares with his patient and loving wife, Rosie. They both yearn for financial stability and see the land they own as insurance for future generations, but when Babe and a few comrades enlist in a scheme that improbably falls apart, he endangers the little security the family has. Over the course of a career spanning more than 30 years, actor/comedian Cedric Kyles has solidified his status as one of the world’s premier performers on the stage, in film and on television. $40-$45, includes one book copy. Online viewing, $40, includes one book copy. 

Raj Haldar, “This Book is Banned”

Left Bank Books, Schlafly Public Library, and Washington University Center for the Humanities presents Raj Haldar, author of the #1 New York Times best-selling picture book, P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever.

Join us for read aloud and discussion of This Book is Banned, a hilarious and thoughtful new picture book that underscores the importance of the fight against censorship in schools and libraries across the country. Discover just what happens when we aren’t allowed to freely share and explore ideas with this funny, self-referential picture book romp that kids (and grown-ups) will want to read over and over again.

Join in person or watch the livestream on Left Bank Books’ YouTube page.

About This Book is Banned

Banning books is downright dangerous — and if you manage to make it to the end of this book, you might just find out why.

Raj Haldar’s hilarious and thoughtful new picture book underscores the importance of the fight against censorship in schools and libraries across the country.

This is a book about dinosaurs. No it’s not. Dinosaurs are not allowed.

Oh. This is now a book about avocados! Sorry. We deleted those too.

FINE. This book is about — nope! Forbidden! BANNED!

Maybe you shouldn’t even try reading this book... But what could possibly be inside?

Discover just what happens when we aren’t allowed to freely share and explore ideas with this funny, self-referential picture book romp that kids (and grown-ups) will want to read over and over again.

About Raj Haldar

Raj Haldar is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling picture book, P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever. But, for close to a decade, he has been better known as Lushlife, the rapper, producer and multi-instrumentalist. In that time, he’s amassed a fervent global fanbase and released award-winning viral music videos that highlight his erudite lyrics. The Sunday New York Times describes his work as “an intoxicating mix of captivating rhymes with audacious, gorgeous production.” So it should come as no surprise that Haldar has made the leap into the world of children’s literature. His latest book, This Book is Banned, gives young readers a lighthearted entry point to begin understanding the dangers of book banning and censorship. His work has been featured by The Washington Post, Interview Magazine, VICE, Pitchfork, Village Voice, Mental Floss, BBC, SPIN and more.

Dream Town Book Talk

Join us for a discussion of Dream Town, a new book by WashU alum and award-winning Washington Post journalist Laura Meckler. Dream Town chronicles the pursuit of integration in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which became a model for housing integration in the 1950s and later provided a national model for school integration. Nonetheless, a stubborn racial academic gap persists today. Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity.

Virtual Book Club: Invisible Man

Join University Libraries for a special Banned Book Week book club. We will discuss Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, one of the most challenged classic books. Invisible Man is the story of an unnamed narrator whose bright future is erased by racism, told in confession form, frankly using the language of the period in which it was written.

Book Club will begin with a short presentation of banned books followed by a discussion of the book.

Free and open to all, registration required for Zoom link.

Mary Jo Bang and Ariana Benson

Two WashU award-winning poets, Mary Jo Bang (A Film in Which I Play Everyone) and Ariana Benson (Black Pastoral), present their new books for the St. Louis launch event. Join us for a night to celebrate and hear the authors read selections from their collections. Mary Jo Bang, professor of English at Washington University, has published nine books of poetry, including A Doll for Throwing and Elegy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and new translations of Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio. In her latest collection, Bang writes as the first-person speaker — for herself and everyone she’s ever met. She falls in and out of love with men, with women, and struggles to realize her ambitions while suffering crushing losses that give rise to dark thoughts. Ariana Benson’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares and Copper Nickel. Recipient of the 2022 Furious Flower Poetry Prize, Benson is a second-year student in the Department of English’s MFA program serves as a nonfiction editor of Auburn Avenue Literary Journal. Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books’ YouTube page. Left Bank Books.

Open Classroom | Navigating the Landscape of Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice: Abortion Access Post Roe

Join us to explore the current state of reproductive health, rights, and justice in the United States. We will provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing laws on abortion access and their profound implications for people across the nation. We will explore the historical context that led to the fall of Roe v. Wade, examining the societal and political factors that contributed to this critical moment in the reproductive rights movement. Attendees will gain a understanding of the challenges ahead and the ongoing fight to protect and expand reproductive health care. Organized by the Brown School’s Open Classroom programming.

Eugene O’Neill Symposium

Join us for a one-day symposium to officially open the Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill. This symposium will also constitute the first day of the Conference for Irish Studies Midwest Regional Conference (ACIS).

All Friday events are free and open to the public; registration is requested. 

Public Tour: ‘Adam Pendleton: To Divide By’

Student educators lead interactive tours of this season’s exhibition Adam Pendleton: To Divide By. Pendleton’s paintings and other works address codes of representation and abstraction, visual and literary uses of language, and the aesthetics of Blackness. The exhibition showcases an assemblage of the American artist’s new and recent paintings, drawings, and video portraits that together reveal his interest in creating a conversation between mediums and his belief in abstraction’s capacity to disrupt.

Free and open to the public. Please check in at the Welcome Desk when arriving for the tour to secure your place.

The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America

Journalist Michael MacCambridge will be in conversation with Gerald Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University and an award-winning essayist. Every decade brings change, but as MacCambridge chronicles in The Big Time, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade: the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming — at least within sports — more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought women more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed and packaged. In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture. Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books’ YouTube page. Left Bank Books.

Why Poverty and Inequality Undermine Justice in America

Mark Rank, the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the Brown School of Social Work, joint appointment in the Department of Sociology at WashU, and author of The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity; and Steven Fazzari, the Bert A. and Jeanette L. Lynch Distinguished Professor of Economics at WashU, and professor of sociology. Public Interest Law and Policy Speakers Series, WashU Law.

¿Quién soy? Y ¿Quiénes somos? A Panel Discussion with Latine Poets

In celebration of Latine Heritage month, join the WashU Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity for a panel discussion about poetic craft and issues of race and identity. Invited guests are:

Roy Guzmán is a Honduran poet whose first collection, Catrachos, was published by Graywolf Press in 2020. He has also been the recipient of a Scribe for Human Rights Fellowship, focusing on issues affecting migrant farm workers in Minnesota, and has been chosen as a Letras Latinas Scholar and a Poetry Incubator participant and workshop leader. After the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, their poem “Restored Mural for Orlando” was turned into a chapbook, with the help of poet and visual artist, D. Allen, to raise funds for the victims. With poet Miguel M. Morales, Guzmán edited the anthology Pulse/Pulso: In Remembrance of Orlando, published by Damaged Goods Press.

Yesenia Montilla received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry & Poetry in translation. She is a CantoMundo graduate fellow and a 2020 NYFA fellow. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast and in Best of American Poetry 2021 and 2022. Her first collection The Pink Box, is published by Willow Books and was longlisted for a PEN Open Book award. Her second collection, Muse Found in a Colonized Body, published by Four Way Books in 2022 was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She lives in Harlem, NY.

Matt Sedillo has been described as the “best political poet in America” as well as “the poet laureate of the struggle” by academics, poets, and journalists alike. He has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. The poetry of Matt Sedillo is in turn a shot in the arm of pure revolutionary adrenaline and at others a sobering call for the fundamental restructuring of society in the interest of people not profits. Passionate, analytical, humorous and above all sincere, a revolutionary poet fortunate enough to be living in interesting times, the artistry of Matt Sedillo is a clarion call for all those who know a new world is not only possible but inevitable.​

Moderated by Tila Neguse, associate director, CRE2; and Gicela Medina, Hispanic studies PhD student.

Reading & Talk with Simone White

WashU Book Arts Workshop with Work/Play

Tour de Museo: Spanish-Language Tour

Join José Garza, museum academic programs coordinator, for a Spanish-language tour of select artworks in the special exhibition Adam Pendleton: To Divide By. The interactive tour will encourage visitors to share observations and interpretations.

Free and open to the public; see website to register.

The Open Collection: Discover Art Special Collections

There are over 4,200 items in the Kranzberg Art & Architecture Library Special Collections. Come learn about this collection and interact with recent acquisitions and popular selections in the Kranzberg Library Reading Room. Remarks will be at 4:15 pm. Refreshments will be served.

Free and open to all, registration requested.

Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts Grant Info Session

ASL Tour: ‘Adam Pendleton: To Divide By’

Join Deaf artist and community advocate Devon Whitmore for an American Sign Language (ASL) tour of the special exhibition Adam Pendleton: To Divide By. The interactive tour will focus on select works of art and will encourage a conversation among participants.

The tour is designed for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing attendees and will be provided in ASL. There will be voice interpreters for those who don’t know sign language.

The free, hour-long tour is limited to 15 visitors on a first-come, first-served basis. See website to register.

Chinese-Language Tour: ‘Adam Pendleton: To Divide By’

Join student educator Weixun Qu, PhD student in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, for a tour of this season’s exhibition Adam Pendleton: To Divide By. The exhibition showcases an assemblage of the American artist’s new and recent paintings, drawings, and video portraits that together reveal his interest in creating a conversation between mediums and his belief in abstraction’s capacity to disrupt.

Free and open to the public. Please check in at the Welcome Desk when arriving for the tour to secure your place.

中文美术展览：Adam Pendleton

邀请您来和艺术史暨考古学系博士生曲维洵共同欣赏Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum本期展览《Adam Pendleton：To Divide By》。本次展览将聚焦于美国当代 艺术家Adam Pendleton新近的画作、绘图和肖像影片，这些作品展现出他对于创造 各种材料间对话的兴趣，以及他对于抽象艺术具有破坏性的信念

Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work — from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility —ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make internal and public pledges to honor and achieve “diversity,” inequities persist through what Adia Harvey Wingfield calls the “gray areas”: the relationships, networks, and cultural dynamics integral to companies that are now more important than ever. The reality is that Black employees are less likely to be hired, stall out at middle levels and rarely progress to senior leadership positions. Adia Harvey Wingfield, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor, Vice Dean of Faculty Development and Diversity and Professor of Sociology at Washington University, is a leading sociologist and a celebrated author who researches racial and gender inequality in professional occupations. Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books’ YouTube page. Left Bank Books.

Creative Practice Workshop Info Session

Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust

ANNUAL HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL LECTURE

From concentration camps to the murder sites of mobile shooting squads, Jews and Roma experienced Nazi persecution in close proximity to each other. Yet, after the war, the world recognized the injustices both groups faced differently. While Jewish persecution histories became memorialized in museums, monuments, and college course the international community largely ignored the Roma genocide. How should we tell the story of the Holocaust in light of this unequal treatment? How have relations between Jews and Roma—from the 1930s to the present—influenced the way we think about Nazi racial persecution?

Tracing the stories of many Romani and Jewish victims, survivors, historians, and activists, Ari Joskowicz vividly describes the experiences of Hitler’s forgotten victims and charts the evolving postwar relationship between Roma and Jews over the course of nearly a century. During the Nazi era, Jews and Roma shared little in common besides their simultaneous persecution. Yet the decades of entwined struggles for recognition have deepened Romani-Jewish relations. They now center not only on commemorations of past genocides or compensation practices but also on contemporary debates about antiracism and the future of democracy.

About the speaker

Ari Joskowicz is chair of Jewish Studies, associate professor of Jewish studies and European studies, and associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. As a historian of modern Jewish and European history, he is especially interested in the interplay between Jewish history and transnational minority politics since the Enlightenment. 

His new book, Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2023), traces the unlikely entanglement of the histories of Jews and Romanies throughout the 20th century, focusing on Western and Central Europe as well as the United States and Israel. Jews and Roma died side by side in the Holocaust, yet the world did not recognize their destruction equally. In the years and decades following the war, the Jewish experience of genocide increasingly occupied the attention of legal experts, scholars, educators, curators and politicians, while the genocide of Europe’s Roma went largely ignored. Rain of Ash is the untold story of how Roma turned to Jewish institutions, funding sources, and professional networks as they sought to gain recognition and compensation for their wartime suffering.

Follow this link for more information on the Holocaust Memorial Lecture.