Hold That Thought

In his rock deformation laboratory here at Washington University in St. Louis, Phil Skemer applies huge amounts of heat and pressure to rock samples. Crushing rocks may sound just like fun, but he and his team are seeking answers to fundamental questions about how Earth works. Why does our planet have plate tectonics, when neighbors like Venus do not? To look for clues, Skemer uses - and builds - instruments that replicate the intense conditions found deep in the interior of the Earth.

For thousands of years, Chinese New Year has been celebrated in the spring to mark the beginning of a new lunar year. Traditions surrounding this festival have varied across time and cultures - here at Washington University in St. Louis, they include the student-run Lunar New Year Festival. To commemorate the occasion this year, Linchei Letty Chen, associate professor of Chinese language and literature, shares personal memories from new year's festivals she experienced growing up in Taiwan.

Mentioning the word "physics" brings to mind things like gravity, relativity, mass and volume. Rarely do we think about how these principles affect the inner workings of our own bodies. This week, Jim Miller, professor of physics, medicine, and biomedical engineering at Washington University, talks about the 'physics' of 'physiology' and explains how cardiologists and doctors use physics in their every day work.

Before becoming the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was a successful lawyer in Virginia. His legal training influenced the way he thought about government and politics, yet this earlier part of his career has largely been ignored by historians. David Konig, professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis, has spent years analyzing the complex legal notes and papers that tell the story of Jefferson's time as an attorney. He is currently writing a biography that will shed light on this fascinating and neglected aspect of Jefferson's life and mind.

In 1913, Poetry magazine published Ezra Pound's "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste." The piece offered would-be poets such memorable advice as "don’t imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music" and "don’t retell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose." A hundred years later, acclaimed literary scholar Marjorie Perloff, the recipient of the Washington University's 2014 International Humanities Medal, put her own spin on Pound's famous guidelines. Perloff shares her five additional "don'ts" and reflects on her early childhood in Vienna.

According to some estimates, just 6 percent of mothers in Peru wash their hands before preparing food. Is it possible that theater could help change this statistic? Art can surely offer personal comfort and emotional healing, but can it influence public health? By helping to develop the Arts for Behavior Change (ABC) program in Lima, Peru, Boston University music professor André de Quadros sought to answer these questions. In his research, teaching, and performances around the world, de Quadros emphasizes using the arts for social change. He spent time with the music department at Washington University in St. Louis this past fall as part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program.

Five months after the death of Michael Brown, the community of Ferguson, Missouri, continues to work toward healing and define common goals - in many cases, with the help of religious leaders and institutions. Laurie Maffly-Kipp, professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis, reflects on the role of faith and church leadership in social and political movements, both in Ferguson and throughout American history. ​

Dr. Michael Friedlander, professor emeritus of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how using historical writings to calculate when future eclipses will take place has revealed new questions about the earth's rotation which scientists are still puzzling over.

The Winter Solstice is on December 21 and marks the shortest day of the year, which was once a very important day to many cultures. In fact, there are thousands of structures across the globe, including the impressive Stonehenge, built by our early ancestors to predict the equinoxes and solstices. So why did they make all this effort? Michael Friedlander, a professor emeritus of physics, and John Kelly, a senior lecturer in archaeology, both at Washington University in St. Louis, introduce us to the field of archaeoastronomy, which they use to examine one of the greatest pre-Columbian civilizations in the United States: Cahokia.

Hayrettin Yücesoy, professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at Washington University in St. Louis, takes us back to the political and theological debates of 9th-century Baghdad. Scholars later claimed that in the medieval Islamic world, religion and politics fit neatly together. However, as Yücesoy explains, the historical reality was much more complicated. Religious scholars, political leaders, and even elite anarchists all had competing ideas about the relationship between Muslim faith and politics.

Should fringe groups, even offensive groups like the Ku Klux Klan, be allowed to have a voice in American politics? Since the 1950s, social scientists have recognized that very religious people are more likely to answer "no" to this type of question. In other words, religion and political intolerance often go hand-in-hand. But why is this the case? Political scientist James Gibson discusses the intersections between faith and intolerance and explains why, though these ideas can often connect, having faith does not make a person less tolerant.

Following the recent grand jury decision to not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of Michael Brown, protests and vandalism erupted in Ferguson and nearby St. Louis, Missouri. Rafia Zafar, professor of English, African and African-American Studies, and American Culture Studies, has written about protests in the civil rights movement and how, surprisingly, food and the sharing of meals played a symbolic role in that struggle. For activists such as Anne Moody, the simple act of ordering a grilled cheese sandwich was a dangerous act of protest. This Thanksgiving week, we reflect on this earlier era of protestors and the many roles of food in American culture.

Guided by a passionate belief that the arts are for everyone, music professor André de Quadros has conducted research in over 40 countries and, closer to his home base in Boston, for the past two years has been teaching classes in two Massachusetts prisons. De Quadros, who will conduct a special performance of the Washington University Choirs as part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program, walks us through his experiences in prison education and shares his conviction that all humans are music-makers. Image © Michael Jacobson-Hardy

What can the history of one Broadway song reveal about American race relations? In Who Should Sing Ol' Man River?: The Lives of an American Song, now available through Amazon and Oxford University Press, musicologist Todd Decker explores how one show tune has been shaped and reshaped over time. Decker joined Hold That Thought to share how "Ol' Man River" transformed from a Broadway ballad into a dance ditty, an activist anthem, and more.

The results from the 2014 midterm elections are in, and Republicans stole the show. On the national scene, the GOP gained 15 seats in the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. As predicted, conservative Christian voters played a significant role in these outcomes. Yet despite the recent focus on the political power of Evangelicals, the influence of liberal Protestantism may be more present in American culture and politics than you think. Historian David Hollinger, professor emeritus at the University of California - Berkeley, discusses what it means to be "Post-Protestant." His most recent book is After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History.