announcements December 2008 | Vol. VII No. 4

One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads

The Center for the Humanities A Bundle of Matches Advisory Board ven as we bask in the warm I am thinking of a very different fairy tale with 2008–2009 glow of bright promise for an a very different ending this holiday season, the Nancy Berg Associate Professor of Asian and Near Obama presidency, the prospect first Western fairy tale I was taught in China. Eastern Languages and Literatures of a holiday season chilled by The image of the Christmas holiday for Chinese Ken Botnick Associate Professor of Art continuing engagement in two children in the 1950s and early 1960s came from Gene Dobbs Bradford foreign wars as well as a deep- a simple fairy tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Executive Director Jazz St. Louis ening economic recession fills Little Match-Seller (1846). I do not remember if Lingchei (Letty) Chen E Associate Professor of Modern Chinese every newscast—and sends shivers through our I read the story first from a textbook or a picture Language and Literature collective household budgets. Perhaps the cur- book, but I can still see the images in my mind: Elizabeth Childs Associate Professor and Chair of rent economic gloom is the Grinch, who finally is a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, Department of Art History and succeeding in stealing the consumer fairy tale that roaming the streets while trying to sell matches Archaeology Mary-Jean Cowell is Christmas to so many Americans. The Grinch on the last evening of the year. But this day no Associate Professor of Performing Arts can have that part of the story so long as he takes one had given her a single penny. So, shivering Phyllis Grossman Retired Financial Executive the credit-card debt that with cold and hunger, Michael A. Kahn goes with it. Christmas has As reality sets in, however, the little girl sank down Author and Partner Bryan Cave LLP become a consumer fairy we are forced to admit that between two houses and Chris King tale. But just as fairy tales huddled herself together to Editorial Director both literary fairy tales and The St. Louis American Newspaper uncover our deep-seated keep warm. our consumer identity are Olivia Lahs-Gonzales wishes, needs, and wants Director just stories we tell ourselves She thought burning one Sheldon Art Galleries and demonstrate how they of the matches might help Paula Lupkin can be magically realized, about who we are. Assistant Professor of Architecture to warm her fingers, so she Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts consumer culture enables Erin McGlothlin rubbed one against the Associate Professor of German us to construct an accept- wall. It gave a warm, bright light and it seemed Steven Meyer able identity through the magic of consumption. Associate Professor of English to the little girl that she was sitting by a large Joe Pollack Of course, consumer fairy tales lack the daring iron stove. She felt so warm that she stretched out Film and Theater Critic for KWMU, quests for beautiful princesses or golden treasures Writer her feet as if to warm them, but when the match Anne Posega that literary fairy tales contain, but they do fea- went out, the stove vanished. She rubbed another Head of Special Collections, Olin Library ture materialistic substitutes in the form of highly match on the wall, and where its light fell upon Qiu Xiaolong sought after goods and services in their pursuit Novelist and Poet the solid structure, the wall became transpar- Sarah Rivett of happy endings. As reality sets in, however, we ent and she could see into the room on the other Assistant Professor of English are forced to admit that both literary fairy tales Henry Schvey side. The table was covered with a beautiful cloth, Professor of Drama and our consumer identity are just stories we tell upon which a splendid dinner service was set; a Wang Ning ourselves about who we are. Professor of English, Tsinghua University steaming roast goose rested on a large platter in James Wertsch Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and Sciences Director of International and Area Studies Ex Officio Ralph Quatrano Interim Dean, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Zurab Karumidze visit our blog site at http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu/publications/blog.html Tbilisi, Republic Of Georgia editor’s notes continued the center. Again when the match called the Communist International. went out there was nothing but the Although we may always harbor hope cold wall before her. She rubbed yet that such a place exists, if not con- another match against the wall and sciously then perhaps subconsciously, found herself sitting under a mag- many of us eventually come to believe nificent Christmas tree. Thousands of that these are just stories. But the un- candles were burning upon the green derlying dream is true. We can slowly branches, and colored pictures, like freeze to death individually or light those she had seen in the show win- our bundle of matches to illuminate dows, looked down upon it all. As she the fact that we are all in this world stretched out her hand toward them, together. the match went out, but the Christmas Dickens puts this thought into lights rose higher and higher, till they the mouth of Scrooge’s nephew Fred looked to her like the stars in the sky. when he says that “I have always She saw a star fall, leaving behind it a thought of Christmas, when it has bright streak of fire. come around…as a good time; as a The little girl’s dead grandmother, kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant the only person she could remember time; the only time I know of, in the loving her, had told her that a falling long calendar of the year, when men star meant someone was dying. She and women seem by one consent to rubbed one last match on the wall, open their shut-up hearts freely, and and in the brightness there stood her to think of people below them as if old grandmother. Realizing that when they really were fellow-passengers to Copyright © 1984 by Crown Publishing Group the match burned out the grandmother the grave, and not another race of crea- would disappear like the warm stove, reached out to take the little girl into tures bound on other journeys.” This is the roast goose, and the Christmas tree, her arms, and they both flew upward in the Christmas that the Grinch, or even she set the whole bundle of matches brightness and joy far above the Earth, the deepest recession, cannot steal. De- ablaze in order to keep her grandmother to a place where there was no cold or spite the reality of pain and suffering there with her. The grandmother then hunger or pain. ahead that many of us may experience before the warfare is concluded and the The author ends the story by de- recession is over, this is the story we Make a Gift to the Center for scribing how the first people to pass should struggle to make real all the rest the Humanities by the next morning found the little of the year. match girl, with pale cheeks and We at the Center oin other donors and supporters smiling mouth, leaning against the to ensure that the Center for the for the Humani- J wall, frozen to death. I was taught ties wish you a very Humanities can continue to fulfill this fairy tale as an object lesson its mission. Help us continue to make happy holiday about the terrible financial secret the humanities a part of public life and season. behind the capitalist West: the poor yours. are so poor because the rich are so Send your check, payable to rich. Everyone was poor in China at Washington University, to: Jian Leng that time, but we all cherished the Associate Director The Center for the Humanities dream of a place where there was no c/o Shannon McAvoy Grass Center for the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis cold or hunger or pain. In Ander- Campus Box 1202 sen’s fairy tale, that place was called One Brookings Drive heaven, and the little girl had gone St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 to join her beloved grandmother in that heavenly kingdom. In my youth, the promised paradise was announcements

Speakers for Faculty Fellows Lecture and Workshop Series, Spring 2009 The Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences is pleased to announce its fourth class of faculty fellows and their invited scholars for spring 2009.

The Spring 2009 Faculty Fellows are Guinn Batten, Ph.D., as- Poetry (2003) and the Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of sociate professor of English; Andrea Friedman, Ph.D., associate Seamus Heaney (2008). With the support of a Fulbright award professor of history; and Jennifer Kapczynski, Ph.D., assistant to Ireland in fall 2008, she is completing a book on states of professor of German, all in Arts & Sciences. emergency, the ethics of violence, and sexual difference in the poetry of English Romanticism and modern Ireland. January 27–28, 2009 Professor Jennifer Kapczynski’s guest February 24–25, 2009 is Johannes von Moltke, professor of Professor Andrea Friedman’s guest screen arts and cultures at the University is Penny M. Von Eschen, professor of of Michigan. Professor Moltke’s research history and American culture at the and teaching focus is on film and Ger- University of Michigan. Professor Von man cultural history of the twentieth Eschen’s research interests are African century. He is the author of No Place like Americans and the politics of culture, Home: Locations of Heimat in German with a particular focus on transnational Cinema (University of California Press, cultural and political dynamics, and Johannes 2005). Together with Julia Hell, he edits race, gender, and empire: the political von Moltke The Germanic Review, and together with Penny M. culture of United States imperialism. She Gerd Gemünden he is the series editor Von Eschen is the author of Satchmo Blows Up the for Screen Cultures: German Film and the Visual at Camden World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold House. He is the organizer of the German Film Institute at War (Harvard University Press, 2004), the University of Michigan. Currently, Professor von Moltke and Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, is working on a project entitled “Moving Images,” which 1937–1957 (Cornell University Press, 1997). She is co-editor explores the relationship between film, history, and emotions. of Contested Democracy: Freedom, Race, and Power in Ameri- Combining his interests in German, film, and cultural studies, can History (Columbia University Press, 2007), and American he has also explored the phenomenon of stardom in Germany Studies: An Anthology (Wiley, 2008). Von Eschen was awarded and Hollywood, representations of Jewishness, the culture of the 2008 Dave Brubeck Institute Distinguished Achieve- Americanization, and popular culture in postwar Germany. ment Award and has co-curated a photography exhibition, Jam Sessions: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World, February 10, 2009 with Curtis Sandberg, vice president for the Arts at Meridian Guinn Batten is associate professor International Foundation in Washington, D.C. She is currently of English at Washington University working on a transnational history of cold war nostalgia. in St. Louis. Professor Batten’s research March 17, 2009 interests are English Romantic poetry, twentieth-century Irish poetry, and Andrea Friedman is associate professor literary theory. She is the author of The of history at Washington University in Orphaned Imagination: Melancholy and St. Louis. Professor Friedman’s research Commodity Culture in English Romanti- focuses on the ways that gender and sex- cism (Duke University Press, 1998), and uality structured American politics and culture in the twentieth century. Her Guinn Batten she is a co-editor of Romantic Genera- tions: Essays in Honor of Robert F. Gleck- current research looks at citizenship dur- ner (Bucknell University Press, 2001). Recently she has been ing the early cold war “from the outside involved in three Cambridge University Press projects associ- in,” identifying historically specific fault ated with Irish poetry. She is co-editor, with Dillon Johnston, Andrea Friedman lines in gender ideologies as a means of the section “Irish Poetry in English, 1945 to the Present” for of explaining the culture, politics, and the Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2006), and a con- social activism of postwar America. tributor to the Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish She emphasizes the gender and racial tensions generated book of the month by Gerald Early

War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, cocaine addict (a habit he started to try Bo Schembechler, and America in a to ease the pressure of playing big-time Time of Unrest college football). Hayes was still under By Michael Rosenberg the impression that the worst he had to worry about was some occasional Grand Central Publishing, 2008, 374 drinking. The man who believed that pages with index, endnotes, and photos football was war, a reenactment of war, The Fall of Woody Hayes an anesthetized version of war, was in 1978 a relic. But the real sign that On the evening of December 29, Hayes had lost it was the fact that he 1978, Woody Hayes’s Ohio State Buck- had lost to archrival Michigan and rival eyes were playing the Clemson Tigers coach Bo Schembechler for two years in in the Gator Bowl, at the time one of a row. His team had slipped so that not college football’s lesser bowl games. It only could it not make the Rose Bowl, was to be the last game that the storied the king of all college bowl games, but Hayes would ever serve as Ohio State’s it could not make the Orange Bowl, a coach, although he was certainly not still very respectable bowl berth. (His aware of that when the game started. lone Orange Bowl appearance was a But perhaps he sensed that the end was loss to Bear Bryant’s Alabama Crimson near. He had been the Buckeyes’ head and temperamentally unable to quit but Tide.) Ohio State had been reduced coach for twenty-eight years. In recent realizing that his best years were behind to the second tier of bowl games. This seasons, there had been a growing num- him, he devised this way of going out— decline—by a man who had won thir- ber of calls for his resignation from fans a quixotic way of falling on his sword. teen Big Ten titles and three national and sportswriters. At age sixty-five, the Punch a kid for a being a son of a bitch championships—seemed unthinkable. old man seemed to have lost his touch. and wrecking his dream of victory. It He no longer seemed in control of his On the night of December 29, Ohio was like punching an enemy soldier, team, of his players. For instance, play- State would lose to Clemson, the wasn’t it? In Hayes’s fevered mind, it ing in this Gator Bowl was his freshman crucial play coming late in the fourth probably was and it wasn’t. Many of quarterback Art Schlichter, who had quarter when Schlichter would throw Hayes’s infamous temper tantrums were become a gambling addict (an affliction an interception to Clemson noseguard acts intended to motivate his players or that would wreck his pro career), and Charlie Bauman. As Bauman ran up himself. He never hurt Bauman; indeed, the team’s backup quarterback and now the field and eventually crashed out of he never hit him cleanly. How real was wide receiver Rod Gerald, who was a bounds on the Ohio State side of the it, in the end? Hayes hit Bauman with field, Hayes, so upset by this turn of his right hand. Hayes was left-handed. In 1981, Hayes underwent events when it seemed Ohio State was What’s the likelihood that you would gall bladder surgery at Ohio on the verge of winning, turned on the use your weak hand to hit somebody if State’s hospital, but the Clemson player and struck him. Hayes you were in a rage? The only people who had struck football players before, his lead with their weak hand are profes- surgeon left a sponge inside own. But he had never struck an op- sional and amateur boxers who have him. . . . Hayes needed another posing player and never on national undergone rigorous training for several surgery to remove the sponge television. He was fired as soon as the years to develop that habit. and his recovery was arduous. game ended. Thus ended the career of Football as the Great American [Ohio State President] Enarson one of the greatest coaches in college Pastime football and certainly the greatest coach sent him a letter, basically in the history of the Big Ten conference. Many sportswriters and intellectuals thanking him for not suing It was a bit like Hayes’s hero, General believe that baseball is America’s game, the sport that exemplifies the heart and the university. Hayes had Patton, losing his command of the soul of this country, illuminates the Seventh Army during World War II for never even considered it. nation’s character. But this is not true. slapping two soldiers he thought were --Michael Rosenberg, War As No sport in America today is more cowards. In fact, the Hayes incident was popular than football, in all its mani- They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo so much like Patton’s that one wonders festations: professional, collegiate, and Schembechler, and America in a if Hayes did it purpose, if he wanted to high school. In regions of the South Time of Unrest, p. 313 go out that way. Being constitutionally and Midwest, football on Friday book of the month continued nights (high school), Saturday pro-war culture of the conserva- (college), or Sunday (pro) is tives, shaped by World War II, a religion of such power that the Good War fought by the baseball is a minor diversion by Good America. On the campuses comparison. Indeed, there are of powerhouse football schools, high school football games in public universities like Ohio State this country that easily outdraw and Michigan, this battle was not only high school and col- fought between those who loved lege baseball games but minor and played football and those league baseball games as well who didn’t. Schembechler, who (and some major league games Hayes (second from left) watches film with his assistant had worked for Hayes as an assis- of the weaker, less popular franchises). Bo Schembechler (seated at his left) in 1959. tant coach before moving to Michigan, The Super Bowl remains the single big- lead the attack. He was forever grate- was, like Hayes, a conservative, tough, gest sporting event in the United States. ful to President Truman for dropping abusive, work-addicted coach, but he ad- Baseball in fact has never penetrated the the atomic bombs that ended the war. justed better to his times and understood depths of our culture that way football Hayes was not merely a military history his players better. He is a useful foil in has; football has permeated our educa- buff; he rose to the ranks of associate this book, given equal time to Hayes, but tional system (even poor, inner-city high professor of military history. He knew nothing more for this reviewer. Hayes, schools or rural schools in the sticks have Ralph Waldo Emerson better than most so much more larger than life, is the star. football teams, and poor kids, despite the English professors. He was one of the But Schembechler’s school, Michigan—a cost, manage to play football, frequently first coaches in America to recruit black hotbed for radicalism and leftist stu- with the rabid support of their parents; players and one of the first to start a dent politics and the more academically the same cannot be said of baseball). black quarterback. He was, of course, impressive school—is also important for Football has shaped our mythology of conservative, but he was no backwoods, this book. Together, Michigan and Ohio competition and masculine contest and reactionary yahoo. He was a complicated State dominated Big Ten football during far more deeply than boxing has given us man with a humanistic bent, who loved this ten-year span. This book probably a warrior cultural tradition. The fact that the military and football. When he should have ended in 1973 or 1974, after football is so psychologically American, left football in 1978, he feared that the the end of the Vietnam War and the end so oriented toward an American view of lowering of academic standards (he had of the campus counterculture movement. symbolism and purpose, explains why one of the highest graduation rates of any The revolt ended in part because it had American football has never caught on coach in college football) would destroy won and in part because people cannot in other countries. (Baseball is played in the game and especially hurt black remain in a revolutionary state for an several other countries and has a consid- athletes. He also thought that television indefinite period of time, particularly at erable international dimension.) Football money would wreck the game. And he a public school where education was less is about manifest destiny, conquering thought that under-the-table payments to an indulgence or a stage of growing up territory, expansion, attacking the enemy. recruits would become a commonplace. and more a necessity for a better job and Woody Hayes was right: football is He turned out to be right. He so hated a better life. But 1978 and Hayes’s pro- clearly about war, the glory of war, the the influence of money that he never ac- fessional demise is a more natural ending sense of American innocence about war; cepted a pay raise. for this story. and of course America loves football Michael Rosenberg’s War as They The book is a lively narrative and because America is a country shaped by Knew It is about two football coaches— provides an exciting summary of the war. Until the 1960s and Vietnam, the Hayes of Ohio State and Schembechler important games and a vivid look at United States had been shaped by the of Michigan—during a ten-year period, the two coaches. It offers a good overall triumph of war and by its confidence in from 1968 to 1978, when each man account of the rise of college football as war. After Vietnam, it would be shaped enjoyed some of his greatest moments, a pop-culture media force (the story of by the tragedy of war and its fear of set against the backdrop of the Vietnam Michigan athletic director Don Canham defeat. War, the counterculture it spawned, who hired Schembechler is probably Hayes served as a lieutenant com- and America’s tragic fall from grace as a more important than Schembechler’s in mander in the Navy in the Pacific during result of its military defeat in southeast this regard) and of the radical left move- World War II and thought he and his Asia. The book is, in effect, about two ments at both Michigan and Ohio State men would surely die in an invasion cultures—the antiwar culture of the and gives an important perspective on of Japan, as his ship was ill-prepared leftists who saw war as the imperial- a crucial era in American life. Recom- for that and was certain to be ist empire building of an evil, racist, mended for sports fans and students of one of the ships designated to corporation-ruled America, and the American culture. st. louis literary calendar

Events in terfield, 636-536-9636. Euclid, 367-6731. All are welcome to the St. Louis Writers December Saturday, December 6 Guild’s Open MIC Night. Register to read The Saturday Writers presents the Annual Cel- online at www.stlwritersguild.org. 7pm, Wired ebration of Writing for All Ages, featuring the Coffee, 3860 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 971-6045. award-winning children’s author of The Golly- The St. Charles Public Library Book Club whopper Games, Jody Feldman. For time, All events are free unless otherwise indicated. meets to discuss Native Tongue by Carl Hiaa- venue, or more info email president@satur- Author events generally followed by signings. sen. 7pm, 1 S. Sixth Ave., St. Charles, 630- daywriters. All phone numbers have 314 prefix unless oth- 584-0076. erwise indicated. B&N Ladue welcomes the author of Eating St. The Foreign Literature Discussion Group Louis, Patricia Corrigan. 11am, 8871 Ladue will meet to discuss The Summer Book by T. Rd., 862-6280. Tuesday, December 2 Jannson. Books are available at a discount Machacek Book Discussion Group wel- Author of Your Gift of Grace, Tom Janicik, ap- from Left Bank Books and Borders Brent- comes new members. Call for the current se- pears at B&N Chesterfield Oaks. 1pm, 1600 wood. 7:30pm, Washington University, West lection. 10am, SLPL–Machacek­ Branch, 6424 Clarkson Rd., Chesterfield, 636-536-9636. Campus, 7425 Forsyth, 727-6118. Scanlan Ave., 781-2948. Karen Tripp will join Main Street Books with SLCL–Sachs Branch invites you to join its SLCL–Meramec Valley Branch Book Group her newest book, God Is Bigger than Your Book Discussion Group. Are you interested meets to discuss The Friday Night Knitting Grief. Tripp’s book God Is Bigger than Your in some literary conversation or just like to talk Club by Kate Jacobs. 7pm, 625 New Smizer Cancer has been a consistent best seller at about the books you enjoy? Copies of the book Mill Rd., 636-349-4981. MSB. 1pm, 307 S. Main St., St. Charles, 636- will be available to check out prior to the meet- 949-0105. ings. Please ask for one at the circulation desk. Wednesday, December 3 7pm, 16400 Burkhardt Pl., 636-728-0001. Webster University presents Ishmael Beah, Sunday, December 7 SLCL–Tesson Ferry Branch hosts the Read- former Sierra Leone boy soldier and author Join Robert Osterhoff as he discusses and er Rendezvous book club, whose selection of A Long Way Gone. 7pm, Grant Gym, 175 signs his book Inside the Lionel Trains Fun this month is Away by Amy Bloom. 7pm, 9920 Edgar Rd., 968-6997. Factory. 2pm, B&N Chesterfield Oaks, 1600 Lin-Ferry Dr., 843-0560. Clarkson Rd., Chesterfield, 636-536-9636. Thornhill Book Chat will meet to discuss Join As the Page Turns book discussion Nighttime Is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark. group at the SLCL–Weber Road Branch to Book discussion, book reviews, and book gos- Monday, December 8 talk about Finding Noel by Nicholas Evans. sip. 10:30am, SLCL–Thornhill Branch, 12863 SLCL–Natural Bridge Branch hosts Lifes- 7pm, 4444 Weber Rd., 638-2210. Willowyck Dr., 878-7730. capes, a book discussion group for seniors. 1:30pm, 7606 Natural Bridge Rd., 382-3116. Wednesday, December 10 Thursday, December 4 You are invited to join Clive and Dirk Cussler Join well-known author Sefan Kanfer. He will A reading by novelist Ethan Canin, whose while they discuss and sign their book The Arc- discuss and sign his most recent book, Some- most recent novel is the New York Times best- tic Drift. 7pm, LBB, 399 N. Euclid, 367-6731. body: Marlon Brando. 7pm, LBB, 399 N. Eu- selling epic, America America. 7pm, Gallery clid, 367-6731. 210, UMSL, 44 E. Drive, 1 University Blvd., SLCL–Grand Glaize Branch hosts the Book 516-5590. Bunch, whose selection this month is Water Boone’s Bookies will discuss The Glass Cas- for Elephants by Sara Gruen. 7pm, 1010 Mer- tle by Jeannette Walls. 2pm and again at 7pm, Left Bank Books presents William Thomas, amec Station Rd., 636-225-6454. SLCL–Daniel Boone Branch, 300 Clarkson author of Unsafe for Democracy, for a book Rd., 636-227-9630. signing and discussion. 7pm, 399 N. Euclid, Tuesday, December 9 367-6731. The St. Charles Public Library Book Club Thursday, December 11 The Mystery Lover’s Book Club will discuss meets to discuss Beethoven Was One-Six- You are invited to join local poet Brian Young Death in Vinyard Waters by Philip R. Craig. teenth Black by Nadine Gordimer. 10am, 1 S. as he discusses and signs his latest published 10am, SLCL–Headquarters Branch, East Sixth Ave., St. Charles, 630-584-0076. work, Site Acquisition. 7pm, LBB, 399 N. Eu- Room, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 994-3300. A dinner and reading with Marilyn Probe and clid, 367-6731. Niki Nymark, who will read poems from Noth- HQ Afternoon Book Discussion Group in- Friday, December 5 ing Smaller than Your Elbow, and Nymark vites you to join them to chat about The Mem- Join Robert Osterhoff as he discusses and reading again from her latest book of poems, ory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. 2pm, signs his book Inside the Lionel Trains Fun A Stranger Here Myself. 5:30pm, Covenant SLCL–Headquarters Branch, 1640 S. Lind- Factory. 4:30pm, B&N Ladue, 8871 Ladue House, 10 Millstone Campus Dr. Call 567- bergh Blvd., 994-3300. Rd., 862-6280. 4912 for dinner reservations. SLCL–Indian Trails Branch hosts the Mur- B&N Ladue welcomes children’s author Brentwood Public Library Book Club will der of the Month Club, which will be discuss- Mary Englebreit, who will sign Nursery Tales. meet to discuss any holiday short story. Pick a ing Dying to Meet You by Jennifer Apodaca. 5:30pm, 8871 Ladue Rd., 862-6280. story or a collection and share what you read 3:30pm, 8400 Delport Dr., 428-5424. Main Street Books invites you to meet au- with the group. A list of suggested titles is avail- thor Jeff Roberts. He will sign and discuss his able at the library or online at www.brentwood. Friday, December 12 lib.mo.us. 7pm, 8765 Eulalie Ave., Brentwood, newest book, Little Stories. 6pm, 307 S. Main SLCL–Rock Road Branch welcomes the 963-8630. St., St. Charles, 636-949-0105. Great Expectations Book Club, whose selec- B&N Chesterfield Oaks welcomes Craig Please join Curtis Roosevelt, grandson of tion this month is Sons of Fortune by Jef- Kaintz and Bill Kasalko, authors of Cruizin’ Franklin D. Roosevelt and author of the mem- frey Archer. 10am, 10267 St. Charles North County. 7pm, 1600 Clarkson Rd., Ches- oir Too Close to the Sun. 7pm, LBB, 399 N. Rock Rd., 429-5116. st. louis literary calendar

Pageturners Book Club meets to discuss Saturday, December 13 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Saturday, December 27 You are invited to join authors Jo Hiestand and 2pm, SLCL–Tesson Ferry Branch, 9920 Lin- You are invited to join the Buder Branch Paul Hornung, who will discuss and sign the Ferry Dr., 843-0560. Book Discussion Group to discuss Walking latest in the Taylor and Graham mystery series, the Bible by Bruce Feiler. 1pm, SLPL–Buder The Coffin Watchers.1pm , Main Street Books, Join the Eureka Hills Book Discussion Group, Branch, 4401 Hampton Ave., 352-2900. 307 S. Main St., St. Charles, 636-949-0105. which meets once a month on every third Wednesday of the month to discuss a new and SLPL–Baden Branch invites you to join a A reading by graduating MFA fiction writers exciting selection. The group will have input on Writer’s Workshop. Meet with your peers and and poets: Juliette Yancy, Serena Muham- the book that will next be discussed. Stop by the the St. Louis Writer’s & Performing Guild mad, Jeannine Vesser, Inda Schaenen, and Eureka Hills circulation desk to check out your and learn how to enhance your writing skills. O. Ayes. There will be a reception with food copy of the next book up for discussion. 6pm, 10am, 8448 Church Road, 388-2400. and cash bar. The event is free and open to SLCL–Eureka Hills Branch, 103 Hilltop Village the public. 7:30pm, E. Desmond and Mary Center, 636-938-4520. Notices Ann Lee Theater of the Touhill Performing Arts All seven-year-olds are invited to join Lucky Mid Rivers Review, St. Charles Community Center, UMSL, 1 University Blvd., 516-5590 or College’s literary magazine, is accepting sub- www.touhill.org. Seven Book Club for a lively book discussion, a fun activity, and a delicious snack. December’s missions of poetry and short fiction through Borders Brentwood invites you to join author book is Gooney Bird Greene by Deborah and January 31. See website for additional infor- Jack Eggmann as he signs The Roots of Ten- James Howe. Stop by the circulation desk to mation and guidelines: www.stchas.edu/mid- nis: Blue Bloods to Blue Collars. 2pm, 1519 S. pick up a copy of the book and to sign up. Books riversreview or call 636-922-8407. Brentwood Blvd., 918-8189. are available on the date (required) registra- The Wednesday Club of St. Louis is accept- tion starts. 7pm, SLCL–Grand Glaize Branch, ing submissions of poetry through February 1, Monday, December 15 Meeting Room 1, 1010 Meramec Sta. Rd., 636- 2009, for the Eighty-third Original Poetry Con- ¡Leamos! Spanish Book Discussion Group 225-6454. test. Grand prize is $700; second prize, $300; will discuss Esperando a Lolo by Ana Lydia Join the Wednesday Evening Book Club as third prize; $150. See website for complete de- Vega, SLPL–Carpenter Branch. 7pm, 3309 they meet to discuss Snow Flower and the Secret tails: www.wedclubstlouis. S. Grand, 772-6586. Fan by Lisa See. 7pm, SLCL–Florissant Valley Robbi Courtaway, a community journalist for Join the Thornbirds for lunch (bring a sack Branch, 195 New Florissant Rd., 921-7200. more than two decades, professes a special lunch and beverage; snacks and dessert pro- fondness for topics involving local and region- vided) and lively talk about their favorite books Thursday, December 18 al history will discuss and sign her new book, of the year. Discussion of Water for Elephants SLPL–Schlafly Branch invites you to join its Wetter Than the Mississippi: Prohibition is St. by Sara Gruen will follow. 12:30pm, SLCL– Book Discussion Group. December’s selec- Louis and Beyond. She is the author of two Thornhill Branch, 12863 Willowyck Dr., 878- tion is A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg. previous books related to St. Louis. Courtaway 7730. 7pm, 225 North Euclid Ave., 367-4120. will give a short presentation of her book Satur- day, December 6, 8:30am, the Gatesworth at Tuesday, December 16 SLPL–Carpenter Branch hosts Public Con- One McKnight Place, 63124, includes brunch; templation: A Philosophy and Religion cost is $20 for guests. Missouri Professional SLCL–Florissant Valley Branch hosts the Book Discussion Group, whose selection is Tuesday Afternoon Book Club, whose se- Communicators, an affiliate of the National The Dark Side by Alan R. Pratt. 7pm, 3309 S. Federation of Press Women, reservations lection is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Grand, 772-6586. 2pm, 195 New Florissant Dr., 921-7200. are due by Dec. 3 to Fran Mannino at 965- SLCL–Natural Bridge Branch hosts Ladies 7735 or [email protected]. Books will The Tuesday Night Writers’ Critique Group of the E*Stallions Book Club. Don’t let the be available for purchase. Sunday, December will meet to read and critique one another’s club name fool you; men are welcome too! 7, 1-3pm, St. Louis Genealogical Society’s work. We hope to be able to meet twice/month 7606 Natural Bridge Rd., 382-3116. Fourth Annual Genealogy Book Jamboree, starting in January. 7pm, B&N Crestwood, #4 Sunnen Drive, 63143. The event is free and 9618 Watson Road. For more information open to the public, and books will be avail- email 9p4a-p8bp2dea.spamcon.org Saturday, December 20 Missouri Botanical Gardens welcomes Dr. able for purchase. Wednesday, December SLPL–Kingshighway Branch invites you to a Peter Raven, who will be signing his book Mis- 10, Courtaway will provide an overview of the Book Discussion Group. The discussion will souri Botanical Garden: Green for 150 Years. prohibition years and sign copies of the book. be about the book, Last Night at the Lobster 11am, Garden Gate Shop, 4344 Shaw Blvd., 7pm, St. Louis Public Library’s Machacek by Stewart O’Nan. 7pm, 2260 S. Vandeventer 577-9400. Branch, 6424 Scanlan Ave., 63139. Thurs- Ave., 771-5450. day, December 11, 7pm, Glendale Historical Karen Glines, author of Painting Missouri, Society, second floor of Glendale City Hall, 424 Wednesday, December 17 will sign her book. This book portrays one oil N. Sappington Road, 63122. painting (by Billyo O’Donnell) per county, ac- SLPL–Schlafly Branch and Left Bank Books companied by an essay by Glines. In keeping are pleased to present author Jan Greenberg Abbreviations with the local theme, Main Street Books also B&N: Barnes & Noble; LBB: Left Bank Books; as she discusses and signs Christo and Jean- welcomes John Oldani, author of Passing It Claude through the Gates and Beyond and Side SLCL: St. Louis County Library; SLPL: St. On: Folklore of St. Louis. 1pm, 307 S. Main St., Louis Public Library; SCCCL: St. Charles City by Side: New Poems Inspired by Art from around St. Charles, 636-949-0105. the World. 7pm, 225 N. Euclid, 367-4120. County Library; UCPL: University City Public Library, WU: Washington University, WGPL: Central Book Discussion Group invites you to Sunday, December 21 Webster Groves Public Library. join them to discuss December’s selection, Blue The BookClub will have its 395th discussion Christmas by Mary Kay Andrews. 4pm, on any work by Shel Silverstein. For more in- Check the online calendar at cenhum.artsci. SLPL–Central Branch, Meeting Room formation, venue, and time email lloydk@klin- wustl.edu for more events and additional de- 1, 1301 Olive St., 539-0396. edinst.com or call 636-451-3232. tails. To advertise, send event details to litcal@ artsci.wustl.edu, or call 935-5576. announcements

within a political system dominated by white men at a moment April 14–15, 2009 when the meanings and the mechanisms of American democ- Professor Guinn Batten’s guest is racy took on enormous national and international import. Her David L. Clark, professor of English and publications include Prurient Interests: Gender, Democracy, and cultural studies and associate member of Obscenity in New York City, 1909–1945 (Columbia University the Health Studies program at McMaster Press, 2000). University, Canada. Professor Clark is author of numerous publications on topics April 7, 2009 including the question of addiction in Jennifer Kapczynski is assistant profes- Heidegger and Schelling, the nature of sor of German and film and media studies the animal gaze in Kant and Levinas, and at Washington University in St. Louis. David L. Clark the enduring importance of the life and Professor Kapczynski’s research focuses work of Jacques Derrida. He is co-editor principally on twentieth-century literature of Regarding Sedgwick: Essays on Queer Culture and Critical and film. Her book project, “The German Theory (Routledge, 2002) and Intersections: Nineteenth-Century Patient: Crisis and Recovery in Postwar Philosophy and Contemporary Theory (State University of New Culture,” examines the place of disease York Press, 1995). Recent publications include “Schelling’s War- in discussions of German guilt after 1945 time: Philosophy and Violence in the Age of Napoleon” (Euro- Jennifer Kapczynski and demonstrates that illness provided pean Romantic Review 19, no. 2), “Lost and Found in Transla- a key framework for postwar thinkers tion: Romanticism and the Legacies of Jacques Derrida” (Studies attempting to explain the emergence and in Romanticism 46), and “Speaking of HIV/AIDS: On the Local impact of fascism. She has published work related to this project Faces of the Epidemic” (Mcmaster University Medical Journal 5, (“Homeward Bound? Peter Lorre’s The Lost Man,” New German no. 1) His public lecture is drawn from his forthcoming book, Critique 89), as well as articles on such diverse writers as Hein- Bodies and Pleasures in Late Kant (Stanford University Press). rich Böll and Heinrich von Kleist. In other recent projects, she The Center for the Humanities’ faculty fellowships are de- has explored the construction of heroism in the 1950s German signed to provide both physical and intellectual environments war-film genre and the representation of democracy in American for innovative interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching. All films made during World War II. She is currently working on a events are free and open to the public. For more information special journal issue on trends in contemporary cinema. (or a free parking sticker) please call (314) 935-5576 or email [email protected].

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID St. Louis, MO The Center for the Humanities Campus Box 1071 Permit No. 2535 Financial assistance for this project has been pro- vided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, Old McMillan Hall, Rm S101 and the Regional Arts Commission. One Brookings Drive Dated Material St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Deliver between November 27 - 29, 2008 Phone: (314) 935-5576 email: [email protected] http://cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu