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Stories of Incredible People, Research, Learning, and Leadership Happening in Arts & Sciences

The Supermarket of Israeli Literature: A Festschrift

The 2017 Man Booker International Prize — which celebrates the finest translated fiction from around the world — shortlisted two Israeli works, Amos Oz’s Judas and David Grossman’s A Horse Walks Into A Bar, which ultimately won the award. Israeli literature, now 70 years in the making, has come into its own, writes scholar Nancy Berg.

3.30.18

Arvidson to receive Weidenbaum Center Award for Excellence

3.30.18 | Faculty, Awards & Notables

Raymond E. Arvidson, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, will receive the Weidenbaum Center Award for Excellence Medal. The award will be given at a ceremony held during the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy annual dinner April 2. This award honors individuals who have made major contributions to both scholarship and public service.

3.29.18

Young Hispanic men may face greatest risk from police shootings, study finds

3.29.18 | Faculty, Research

The police shooting earlier this month of Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s Sacramento backyard has renewed protests over officer-involved deaths of unarmed black men, but research led by Washington University in St. Louis suggests young Hispanic men may face an even greater risk of being killed by police, especially in mixed-income neighborhoods with large Latino populations.

3.28.18

WashU Spaces: Keith Hengen

3.28.18 | Faculty, Campus Life

Keith Hengen, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, collects more than 20 terabytes of data a day. Through big data, new technology and good coffee, Hengen has set out to discover how systems of neurons interact. And, in doing so, he created a new sort of workspace that is both functional and fun.

3.27.18

Why Movie History Matters: David Bordwell and Film Studies, Yesterday and Today

3.27.18 | Arts & Humanities, Faculty, Profiles

Film studies scholar Colin Burnett traces the recent trajectory of film studies as an academic discipline in the seminal writings of David Bordwell and finds an exemplar for humanists of all stripes: an open-minded scholar eager to follow a question where it leads him.

3.21.18

A new 'wrinkle'

3.21.18 | Arts & Humanities, Faculty

What to think of the film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time? Rebecca Wanzo and Laurie Maffly-Kipp exchange ideas about the the book’s leap to the big screen in wide-ranging discussion. Spoiler: these scholars give the edge to the book.

3.19.18

Bono debut book tackles strategies for happiness

3.19.18 | Faculty, Social Sciences

How can we be happier? In a world where stress, anxiety and bad days can easily overtake the good, Washington University happiness expert Tim Bono strives to answer that question in his book, “When Likes Aren’t Enough: A Crash Course in the Science of Happiness.”

3.19.18

Americans prefer economic inequality to playing Robin Hood, study finds

3.19.18 | Faculty, Social Sciences, Research

Given the chance to play Robin Hood, most Americans show little interest in taking from the rich and giving to the poor. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may explain why it’s so hard for voters in modern democracies to erase the economic inequalities that separate most citizens from the nation’s super-wealthy elites.

3.13.18

‘How We Listen Shapes How We View the World’: The Radio Drama in Post-WWII Germany

3.13.18 | Arts & Humanities, Faculty

In the decades after World War II, the citizens of West Germany and Austria tuned in to narrative radio dramas, or Hörspiel, to reckon with their fascist past and imagine their democratic future, says German studies scholar Caroline Kita.

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