"Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors"

Nov. 5, 2009 -- Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist and literary critic Louis Menand will present the keynote address for "Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors," the university's eighth annual faculty book colloquium, at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, in Graham Chapel.

Louis Menand

The colloquium also will feature presentations by two Washington University faculty members. William Lowry, Ph.D., professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, is author most recently of Repairing Paradise: The Restoration of Nature in America's National Parks (2009). Lori Watt, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and International & Area Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, is author of When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan (2009).

Organized by the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and University Libraries, "Celebrating Our Books" is free and open to the public though seating is limited and RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Graham Chapel is located immediately north of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd.

Immediately following the colloquium, a reception and book signing will take place in Holmes Lounge, where faculty books published in the last five years will be on display. Faculty books also will be displayed and available for purchase in the Washington University Campus Store.

For more information or parking stickers, call (314) 935-5576 or email cenhum@wustl.edu.

Menand is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English at Harvard University and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. His books include The Metaphysical Club, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in History, which explores the lives of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey as well as their influence on American thought. Other books include American Studies (2002) and Discovering Modernism: T. S. Eliot and His Context (1987). His most recent volume is The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as series editor), which will be released in December.

Lowry studies American politics, environmental policy and political institutions, with a special emphasis on natural resources, public lands and related issues. He is the author of numerous articles as well as five books, including Dam Politics: Restoring America's Rivers (2003); Preserving Public Lands for the Future: The Politics of Intergenerational Goods (1998); The Capacity for Wonder: Preserving National Parks (1994); and The Dimensions of Federalism: State Governments and Pollution Control Policies (1992).

Watt's academic interests include decolonization, history and memory, and military cultures. In particular, her research explores the dismantling of the Japanese empire after World War II and the transition of East Asia from an imperial to a Cold War formation. Current projects include The Allies and the Ethnic Unmixing of Asia, 1945-1946 and the social history The 'Ordinary Men' of Japan: the Takada 58th Infantry Regiment.