Obituary for Donald Finkel, poet in residence emeritus at WUSTL, where he had taught from 1960 to 1991. His work appeared in The New Yorker and other publications.

References:

1. Nov. 21, 2008 — Donald Finkel, 79, Poet of Free-Ranging Styles, Is Dead in the The New York Times

Newsweek's Jerry Adler writes that in her book of poems titled 'Elegy,' Mary Jo Bang finds inspiration in the darkest of places.
Bang's poetry was inspired by the grief after her son's death.
She teaches creative writing at WUSTL.

References:

1. June 2, 2008 — The Poetry of Pain in the Newsweek

In Thursday night's installment of its Poetry Series, WUSTL writer Mary Jo Bang examines grief's poetic form, the elegy.
She is professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at WUSTL. Her fifth book, "Elegy," which won of the National Book Critics Circle Award, examines the pain and grief following the death of her son. She shares two poems from the collection.
Includes a video link to this story.

References:

1. April 10, 2008 — Mary Jo Bang Examines Grief's Poetic Form, the Elegy in the PBS: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

and 1 others.

Joseph Loewenstein, a Renaissance literature expert at WUSTL, is leading a team of graduate and undergraduate students to compile, edit, annotate and digitize Spenser's complete oeuvre.

References:

1. Jan. 27, 2008 — Building a Spenser collection for the ages in the Los Angeles Times

and 1 others.

Writer looks at the popularity of the best seller "The Secret" and the history of the New Thought movement.
WUSTL religious studies professor Frank Flinn comments.

References:

1. June 25, 2007 — "The Secret" Draws on Long Tradition in the Associated Press Online

and 57 others.

AP's Cheryl Wittenauer reports on the story behind Hana's Suitcase, a play that is receiving its American premiere this week at WUSTL's Edison Theatre.
Playwright Emil Sher's adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name by Karen Levine is co-produced by Edison Theatre and Metro Theater Company.

References:

1. Jan. 18, 2007 — 'Hana's Suitcase' bridges 2 worlds in its search for a girl who died at Auschwitz in the Associated Press

and 16 others.

A UK-led team is challenging cherished ideas on Greek mythology by proposing an alternative site for Ithaca.
The island was said to be the home of Odysseus, whose 10-year journey back from the Trojan War is chronicled in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.
Geologists are this week sinking a borehole on nearby Kefalonia in an attempt to test whether its western peninsula of Paliki is the real site.
WUSTL art history and archaeology professor Sarantis Symeonoglou, who has spent years trying to tie locations on Ithaki to details in the poem, comments.

References:

1. Oct. 11, 2006 — Drill hole begins Homeric quest in the BBCNews.com (UK)

In a June 19 article on the legal battle over intellectual property rights between James Joyce's grandson and various scholars, WUSTL law professor and intellectual property specialist F. Scott Kieff comments.

References:

1. June 19, 2006 — The Injustice Collector in the The New Yorker

Article on a library-scanning project that brings public-domain materials online and offers an alternative to Google's model.
Internet Archive, is guiding a mass-digitization project called the Open Content Alliance, which was announced in October and is rapidly gaining partners. The alliance plans to take carefully selected collections of out-of-copyright books from libraries around the world and turn them into e-books that will be available free to scholars and anyone else who wants to view them, print them, or even download them to their own computers.
WUSTL recently joined. Shirley Baker, vice chancellor for information technology and dean of university libraries, comments.

References:

1. Jan. 27, 2006 — Scribes of the Digital Era in the Chronicle of Higher Education

The invention of the printing press didn't just make it easier to disseminate information, it made it easier to hide it, too -- as the collection of books in a vault at WUSTL shows. The books, some more than 500 years old, chronicle the history of secret codes -- some concealed so intricately that art professor Ken Botnick regularly shows them to his students. (Link also contains the text of the longer St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the collection.)

References:

1. Aug. 15, 2005 — University library's collection tells story of secret codes in the Associated Press
2. Aug. 14, 2005 — WU is home to rare coded books in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Dear Papa, Dear Hotch -- letters between Ernest Hemingway and WUSTL alum A.E. Hotchner -- will be released this fall by U. Missouri Press. Hotchner talks about his friend and his life.

References:

1. July 21, 2005 — Hemingway pal A.E. Hotchner recalls his old friend in the Associated Press

and 11 others.

A previously unpublished poem by Tennessee Williams, described as having been "written out of absolute, complete despair," has been discovered in his blue test booklet from a college course in 1937.
The poem has been acquired by WUSTL, where Williams, as a student in his mid-20s, plummeted into depression before fleeing the city he said he despised.
WUSTL performing arts chair Henry Schvey found the poem and test booklet last March at Faulkner House Books in New Orleans.

References:

1. April 14, 2005 — Unpublished Williams poem found in bookstore in the Associated Press

and 115 others.

Ms. Van Duyn was selected by the Library of Congress in 1992 to serve a term as the United States poet laureate. She was the sixth laureate and the first woman to be chosen. Mona Jane Van Duyn was born on May 9, 1921, in Waterloo, Iowa. She taught at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, and at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as at writing seminars and conferences.

References:

1. Dec. 4, 2004 — Mona Van Duyn, 83, Suburbia's Poet, Dies in the New York Times

and 11 others.

"It seems that I've become something of a celebrity in recent years," the Romano-British churchman Patricius observed near the end of his long career, perhaps foreseeing the extravagant emerald mantle that would be wrapped about him by the cult of St. Patrick. In this lively and lucid biography, Philip Freeman, who teaches classics at Washington University in St. Louis, draws on the saint's surviving letters, including the eloquent "Confession," to glean personal details of Patrick's life and fit them into what is known of early Irish history. "Driving the snakes out of Ireland, entering contests to the death with pagan Druids, using the shamrock as an aid to explaining the Trinity -- all these are pious fictions created centuries later by well-meaning monks," Freeman writes. "The true story of Patrick is far more compelling than the medieval legends." Patrick was neither Ireland's first Christian nor the country's first bishop. Patrick apologized for his lack of learning, for writing Latin "as if it were a foreign language," but he enriched his faith by bringing to it a race of stern confessors and exuberant artists.

References:

1. March 15, 2004 — St. Patrick's real life more fascinating than the myths in the The New York Times

and 9 others.

Twenty years after his death, one of Tennessee Williams' plays is seeing the light of a stage for the first time. "Me Vashya," an early play by Williams, will receive its world premiere at Washington University in St. Louis in February. Written in 1937 while Williams was a student here and known as Tom, his birth name, the play has remained in Washington University archives for more than 60 years. It has never been published or performed — until now.

References:

1. Jan. 26, 2004 — 20 years after his death, a Tennessee Williams' work is staged for the first time in the The New York Times

Book review of Debra Dickerson's The End of Blackness by Gerald Early, author and director of WUSTL Center for the Humanities. Early writes: "With the publication of ''The End of Blackness,'' a book not only about white racism but about black people's response to it, Debra J. Dickerson joins a growing and varied class of black public intellectuals that includes people like John McWhorter, Bell Hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, Patricia Williams, Henry Louis Gates, Shelby Steele, Thulani Davis, Stanley Crouch, Greg Tate, Ellis Cose and Brent Staples. Their views are sufficiently different that they might be said to represent distinct factions among African-Americans and, no less relevant, speak to distinct factions of educated whites."

References:

1. Feb. 1, 2004 — American Skin in the The New York Times

Derek Hirst, chairman of the department of history in Arts & Sciences, reviews The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, The Man Who Measured London, by Lisa Jardine. Hooke is described as a rival to Newton. His pursuits included studying the planetary orbits, inventing and building scientific instruments, and pioneering work with microscopes.

References:

1. April 25, 2004 — You're no Isaac Newton in the The New York Times