Literature and History

Co-director: Gerald N. Izenberg Co-director: Steven N. Zwicker

Home Page: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~english/undergrad/lit&history.htm Location: 118 Busch Hall Telephone: (314) 935-5446

The Literature and History Program in Arts & Sciences offers the opportunity to explore an integrated program of literary, political and historical studies. The program is particularly strong in the traditions of literary aesthetic and political culture in England from the late Tudor period to the Glorious Revolution; in Jeffersonian democracy to contemporary culture in the United States; and in the French Revolution to the present in Europe. The program also explores theories of interdisciplinary work from Marx and Lukacs, to Pocock and LaCapra.

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To Kill a Mockingbird Washington University receives Big Read grant from National Endowment for the Arts June 17, 2008 -- The Big Read is a national program designed to encourage literary reading by helping communities come together to read and discuss a single book. In January 2009 Washington University in St. Louis — supported by a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — will coordinate a St. Louis Big Read focusing on Harper Lee's 1960 classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The month-long series of community-based events will include a wide variety of reading programs, read-a-thons, book discussions, lectures, performances, movie screenings and other activities.

Obituary Jarvis A. Thurston, 93; professor of English Feb. 15, 2008 -- Jarvis A. Thurston, Ph.D., professor emeritus of English and former chair of Washington University's Department of English in Arts & Sciences, died Feb. 4 of heart disease at his home in University City. He was 93.

His 'Blue Period' Previously unknown Tennessee Williams poem found in the budding playwright's 1937 Greek exam April 8, 2005 -- Tennessee Williams' 'blue' book Download A piece of literary history has returned to Washington University in St. Louis, thanks to a fortuitous find in a New Orleans bookstore. In 2004, Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., professor and chair of the university's Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, co-directed the world premiere of "Me, Vashya," a one-act play written in 1937 by then-student Tennessee Williams. Only weeks later, Schvey happened upon another important Williams-related artifact from 1937: a small blue Washington University test booklet containing what appears to be Williams' Greek final, which he had worried about passing, as well as a previously unknown poem. It is assumed Williams wrote the 17-line poem, which he appropriately titled "Blue Song," in the back of the booklet while taking his exam.

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