Hold That Thought

Is the restaging of a ballet an act of remembrance? Is a performance, by definition, something with a beginning and an end that can't be recreated? Why are works of performance art worth preserving? Join Pannill Camp and Christine Knoblauch-O'Neal, both professors within the Performing Arts department at Washington University in St. Louis, as they discuss the concept of "reperformance."

India has more hungry people than any other country in the world. Can biotechnology solve its problems? Glenn Stone, professor of sociocultural anthropology and environmental studies at Washington University in St. Louis, describes the controversies and debates surrounding the role of genetically modified crops in the developing world. Stone writes about food, farming, and biotechnology on his blog, www.fieldquestions.com. Music courtesy of Shamil Elvenheim: http://homepage.internet.lu/Shamil/.

Join Doug Wiens, professor and chairman of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, as he describes his explorations of Antarctica. Dr. Wiens has been using seismographs to study Antarctica for some fifteen years. He and his colleagues study the physics behind ice movement and explore questions about where and how ice in the the western Antarctic ice sheet is melting.

According to the National Institute on Aging, experts estimate that more than five million people in the United States have Alzheimer's disease, a condition that damages memory and cognitive function. Dr. David Holtzman - Professor and Chairman of the neurology department at the Washington University School of Medicine and associate director of the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center - explains what is happening in the brain of someone with Alzheimer's. He also describes his own laboratory's research into the disease and shares why he believes that it should be treatable.

For activists such as Anne Moody in the Civil Rights Movement, the simple act of ordering food at a restaurant was a dangerous act of protest. Professor Rafia Zafar explores this moment in time and discusses the ways in which food relates to ethnic, personal, and class identity. Zafar serves within African and African American Studies, American Culture Studies, and the English Department at Washington University in St. Louis. She writes and teaches about the role of food in American literature and culture.

How trustworthy is human memory? Henry Roediger, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, describes his research into how and why errors in memory occur. As Roediger's research reveals, suggestive questioning, repetition, and false inferences all can cause people to remember details incorrectly, or even to remember whole events that never happened. The implications of this research are far-reaching, especially in the justice system. According to the Innocence Project, nearly 75% of overturned convictions have involved witness misidentification.

In the tumultuous early years of the United States, how did the federal government operate on a day-to-day basis? Who worked for the government, and what responsibilities did these people take on? What types of crises did the country face, and how do those crises relate to the challenges we face today? Professor Peter Kastor from Washington University in St. Louis shares his research into the early decades of federal government the United States.

Dr. Gayle Fritz decribes the Eastern Agricultural Complex, a group of crops grown thousands of years ago in what is now the eastern and midwestern U.S. These foods, which included a domesticated relative of quinoa no longer in existence, were grown before the arrival of corn and beans to North America.

The idea of "postmemory" cuts across academic disciplines and affects many cultures. To further explore the concepts that Erin McGlothlin introduced earlier this week, listen in to this hour-long meeting of Washington University's Transnational Approaches to Postmemory Reading Group. In this recording, an interdisciplinary team of scholars discuss the novel Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald.

How do the memories of one group affect future generations? Erin McGlothlin, associate professor of German and Jewish Studies, explores Second Generation Holocaust Literature and discusses the concept of "postmemory."

Dr. Fiona Marshall from Washington University in St. Louis shares her research into the African wild ass, the ancestor of donkeys, and explains why understanding more about domesticated animal species is so important to farmers around the world. Marshall studies the African wild ass in partnership with the St. Louis Zoo.

Dr. Fiona Marshall from Washington University in St. Louis explains how knowledge of early food production, especially in Africa, has changed over the last twenty years. For starters, Marshall's research has shed light on how changes in climate led to the domestication of animals in Africa long before the domestication of crops.

In order to carry out daily tasks like taking medication, attending meetings, and bringing lunch to work, we need to remember to do those things. Professor Mark McDaniel describes his research on prospective memory.

Philosophy professor Carl Craver from Washington University in St. Louis tackles some fundamental questions about the importance of memory. Is it our personal memories that make us distinctly human? Does our capacity for memory make us morally accountable for our actions? How does our ability to remember the past relate to how we think about the future? And where do all these questions leave people with amnesia?

Professor Glenn Stone from Washington University in St. Louis provides a brief history of industrial agriculture in the U.S., from the first era of hyper-industrialization shortly after World War II to the use of antibiotics in today's factory farms. Listen in to find out how the ongoing debates over food production got started, and consider why these debates continue to be so important.