Lewis and Clark data show narrower, more flood-prone River
Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has analyzed data from the Lewis and Clark expedition and says it shows that the Missouri River today is but a shadow of what it was two hundred years ago, narrower and more prone to serious flooding.A geologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborator at Oxford University have interpreted data that Lewis and Clark collected during their famous expedition and found that the Missouri River has markedly narrowed and its water levels have become more variable over the past two hundred years. This narrowing, or channeling, created by wing dikes and levees constructed mainly in the 20th century, has put the Missouri River at an increased risk of more damaging floods, the authors say. They blame the fact that the river cannot spread out as it did naturally at the turn of the 19th century, thus forcing water levels higher. More…
On Cloud Nine
John StadlerMale characters played by women, female characters played by men, a dutiful matron who morphs into a vulnerable gay man, a patriarchal husband who becomes a mischievous five-year-old girl. In November, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present an all-new production of Cloud Nine, the classic, gender-bending satire of colonial and sexual conquest by London playwright Caryl Churchill.
Staging The Awakening
Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo Services”The Awakening”The Awakening (1899) by St. Louis author Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was perhaps the most controversial novel of its day. In October, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will mark the centennial of Chopin’s death with an original stage adaptation of The Awakening by Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., chair and professor in the PAD. Performances begin Oct. 14-17 in Edison Theater, and continue Oct. 28 and 29 at the Missouri Historical Society.