Humanities

Best selling novelist Curtis Sittenfeld shared stories about her work for the Neureuther Library Lecture, held on November 12, 2014, in Simon Hall May Auditorium.

The keynote event for the Brown School’s Smart Decarceration Initiative will feature two individuals who are making a positive impact on prison reform.

One of the many research interests of Sue Vice, who teaches contemporary literature, literary theory, culture, and film at the University of Sheffield, is the representation of the Holocaust. As this year’s Holocaust Memorial Lecturer, Vice will draw on her extensive knowledge of the varied forms of Holocaust literature and film that have entered the public realm, and discuss what the most recent examples suggest about Holocaust memory today.

On September 12 Steven Galloway gave a talk on his book, The Cellist of Sarajevo, this year’s First Year Reading Program selection. The Canadian author’s third novel is based on a real event that occurred in the beseiged eastern European city in the early 1990s as its citizens attempt to live their lives — and hold on to their humanity — under the daily threat of death.

The Bosnian genocide, carried out between 1992 and 1995, displaced nearly a quarter of Bosnia’s pre-war population, with refugees scattered throughout the world. This year's annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture will feature anthropologist Sarah Wagner discussing “Srebrenica’s Legacies of Loss and Remembrance,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, in Umrath Hall Lounge.

Meghan Daum writes about serious matters, but that doesn’t mean her novels, essays and columns are depressing. Rather, they show the heartbreak and the humor of real life in all its complicated glory. For example, in her newest collection, “The Unspeakable,” she writes about her feelings of kinship with lesbians, how it feels to live through a life-threatening illness, and the love of a good dog. She uses moments from her life to explore broader issues of the day in a new or different way, but always with respect for the truth.

Jay Winter, PhD, the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University.

The screenwriter, director, actor and producer returned to his alma mater several times, and delivered three Assembly Series addresses (most recently in 2009). He also served two terms on the Board of Trustees, and handled Homecoming's master of ceremonies duties in 1984.

On March 19, David Sedley delivered the annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom. Sedley addressed the question: "What Is Plato's Theory of Forms?"

Christiane Gruber's research interests span medieval Islamic art to contemporary visual culture and predominantly focus on Islamic book arts, paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, and Islamic ascension texts and images. In her talk, "The Praiseworthy One: Devotional Images of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Traditions," Gruber will explore the ways in which, within a variety of Islamic expressive cultures, artists and viewers alike used pictorial language to express devotion to the Prophet Muhammad.

Anca Parvulescu, professor of English with a joint appointment with the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH), used Hermann Hesse’s novel, Der Steppenwolf, as well as a contemporary video installation, to consider the role of laughter in modernity. In her talk, she raised the question of whether Hesse’s faith in the promise of laughter is a relic of the past or whether it is still available to us as a potential resource.

On March 4, 2015, Shanti Parikh moderated a panel discussion on the cultural implications of an ebola outbreak, featuring: Adia Benton, Steven Lawrence, Corinna Treitel, and Priscilla Wald.

In his October 27, 2014 lecture,”Talking About Race in 19th-century American Science: Louis Agassiz and His Contemporaries,“ Christoph Irmscher discussed the brilliant and controversial Swiss immigrant who became the most famous scientist of his time. Irmscher gave the annual Thomas Hall History of Science Lecture in Rebstock Hall Room 215.

For the acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson, religion is one of the most profound aspects of American life. As such, religious themes inform much of her fiction and nonfiction. She is currently completing a book on the Old Testament; her lectures this November will offer the Washington University community a glimpse of her thinking on the Hebrew Bible.

At 4 p.m. Thursday, April 11, Kathleen Coleman will give an Assembly Series talk that paints a real picture of the Roman arena spectacle, explaining Roman penal theory and practice regarding Christian martyrdom in the context of the expectations and attitudes of both the Roman authorities and audiences. Coleman’s talk, the annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics, will be held in Steinberg Hall Auditorium on Washington University’s Danforth Campus; it is free and open to the public.

British archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and his research team had unprecedented access to Stonehenge and its surroundings, and his research findings are replacing centuries of speculation with facts. He will share them at an Assembly Series program at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.

The beloved children's author Maurice Sendak spoke on campus more than once, but on Nov. 29, 1989 his talk was on "Creative Theft."

For Washington University’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture, Bergen will deliver an address on “Holocaust or Genocide: Uniqueness and Universality” at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2 in Umrath Lounge.

“Fortune,” said Mark Twain, “knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her. Fortunately for Garth Risk Hallberg, when fortune came knocking, he was at home with the manuscript for “City on Fire,” a 900-page novel set in 1970s punk-era New York.

Washington University alumna Sara Taksler is a senior producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where she has pitched stories and jokes, and researched footage for the iconic funnyman for more than a decade.