Dean's Distinguished Lecture

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture series showcases outstanding Arts & Sciences faculty, providing an opportunity to share their scholarship with the WashU community.

Upcoming Event

Hester Blum: "A Manifesto for the Polar Humanities"

Join us for a talk led by Hester Blum, the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English.

This talk is both an account of one English professor's experience in navigating Arctic and Antarctic expeditionary research, and a manifesto for understanding polar humanities research as an urgent need in our present moment. How can we learn from the humanities (not just the science) of climate change?

  • Date: Tuesday, February 2nd, 2027
  • Time: 4:00 p.m - Lecture and Q&A | 5:00 p.m. - Reception
  • Location: Clark-Fox Forum, Hillman Hall

About Hester Blum

Hester Blum is the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English and an affiliated professor in the Environmental Studies Program. She is the author of "The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration" (Duke 2019) and "The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives" (UNC 2008), and the editor of the Oxford edition of Herman Melville’s "Moby-Dick" (2022), among other volumes. Blum has three books in progress: "Polar Erratics: In and Out of Place in the Arctic and Antarctica;" "Lonesome Dove Reread" (Columbia University Press, under contract); and "Seamen’s Lexicon" (Reaktion Books, under contract). She has participated in several research trips to the Arctic and Antarctica, and her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Past Events

Statistics for AI or AI for Statistics?

In this presentation, Professor Xuming He argues that statistics and AI are becoming increasingly intertwined as they advance toward a shared future in the digital age. As one illustration, he discusses the complementary roles of statistics and AI in the generation and analysis of synthetic data, including data generated from human–machine interactions. 

Learn more about He' efforts to leverage the insights of scholars across WashU to make artificial intelligence more trustworthy.

Watch Xuming He's lecture

 

 

Pressure Against Emptiness: Some Thoughts on Making

Carl Phillips is a celebrated poet, essayist, and professor whose work has garnered critical acclaim and captivated readers around the world. With numerous accolades to his name, Phillips is recognized as one of the most influential voices in contemporary literature. The author of 16 books of poetry and a four-time finalist for the National Book Award, Phillips received the Pulitzer for his latest collection, "Then The War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020." The book has been described as "a masterful collection that chronicles American culture as the country struggles to make sense of its politics, of life in the wake of a pandemic, and of our place in a changing society."

Learn more about Phillips' writing and teaching in this Ampersand magazine Q&A.

WATCH Phillips' Lecture

 

 

The Causes & Consequences of Women's Political Representation

Diana Z. O'Brien, Professor of Political Science and the inaugural recipient of the Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professorship, drew on wide-ranging evidence to explain why women are well-represented in some countries and institutions while underrepresented in others. She also explored how women's representation influences policy agendas and shapes citizens' relationships with the state, placing the current political moment within a broader historical and global context.

A winner of a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship, O’Brien studies the causes and consequences of women's political representation around the world, with a focus on established democracies. Her research examines gender and political parties, executive branch politics, citizens' responses to women in politics, and research methods. Learn more about Diana’s research in this recent article.

Watch O'Brien's Lecture