News

What can tacos or tubes of lipstick teach us about history and culture? Ignacio Sánchez Prado and Eileen G’Sell explore the surprising answers in new editions of the popular book series about the secret lives of everyday objects. Ignacio Sánchez Prado knew he had to write about tacos — he just wasn’t sure how. Sánchez Prado, […]

Cristina Correa, a second-year PhD student in the Department of Comparative Literature and Thought, has been selected as a Fellow in the 2025 Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop, and online, intensive summer training program for aspiring publishing professionals with an emphasis on diverse and innovative publishing opportunities. During the workshop from June 23 to […]

A new WashU program, A&S CREATES, is helping students like Moore share their work beyond traditional audiences. Matthew Moore, a doctoral candidate in the Department of English, has a dilemma: The people he writes about are unlikely to read his work. Moore is a first-generation college student from Blythedale, Missouri, a blue-collar town with fewer than […]

Associate Professor of English and Program in Public Scholarship Faculty Affiliate Edward McPherson’s forthcoming book, Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View, will be published by Astra Publishing House on October 21, 2025. Astra recently revealed the cover design by Arsh Raziuddin on Instagram. About Look Out As if Borges and Didion took a […]

“When we think of the phrase ‘public scholarship,’ we think of the public and orienting our work away from ourselves,” Margret Grebowicz said during her keynote remarks at the inaugural Public Scholarship Symposium last month. “But the greatest value of this kind of work for me has been how it forces me to figure out […]

In March 2024, Washington University Assistant Professor of English Gabrielle Kirilloff launched an ongoing column for Forbes covering the intersection of video games with real-world issues. Kirilloff’s column came to fruition thanks to support from the Program in Public Scholarship (PPS), whose mission is to help WashU faculty translate their research and expertise for public audiences. We caught up with Kirilloff […]

The Program in Public Scholarship is pleased to announce the two inaugural recipients of the Arts & Sciences Public Scholarship Prize: Dr. Rebecca J. Lester (Anthropology), for her trade book on dissociative identity disorder, Coming Undone: One Woman, Twelve Personalities, and the Myth at the Heart of ‘Mental Health’ and Dr. Abram Van Engen (English), for work to expand and amplify his […]

If the first year of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan was about building new programs from within, Year Two has focused on expanding their impact outward. Having spent 2023 building up their reputations on Washington University’s campus, representatives from two of the Strategic Plan’s strategic initiatives visited the 2024 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference and Bookfair this February […]

The Program in Public Scholarship has announced its inaugural call for applicants for the Arts & Sciences Public Scholarship Prize. These awards will be given to selected Arts & Sciences faculty who are engaged in a public-facing project or want to increase the public impact of their research. This prize awards the recipient with $5,000 of research […]

In 2023, the Program in Public Scholarship began its work of connecting WashU faculty with media outlets to share their academic expertise with broad, general audiences. The Program assisted faculty with conceiving, pitching, and refining articles for publication. Among the dozens of articles published this year through the Program in Public Scholarship, here is a selection of five […]