School of Arts and Sciences

The institute will serve as a center for performance programs on the River Campus, aiming to further inspire students with or without prior training or experience to explore a variety of aesthetic art forms and opportunities. The institute will strengthen the relationships among the College, the Eastman School of Music, and the Memorial Art Gallery.

Dean of Arts & Sciences Gloria Culver has announced the creation of a Humanities Center, which will support multidisciplinary engagement around literature, history, the arts, and philosophies of cultures past and present. Culver and interim director of the new center Joan Shelley Rubin have chosen “Humanities at the Crossroads: Charting Our Future” as the center’s theme for its first year. Faculty and students will organize research projects, seminars and symposia around the theme.

Gloria Culver has been appointed dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, effective immediately. Culver has been serving as interim dean since July 1, 2014.

Combat GIs dominate the history of Americans abroad during World War II. But these soldiers constituted only a small fraction of the unprecedented millions of Americans who mobilized for war. Brooke Blower, a Boston University historian, explores the backstories of a diverse group of noncombatants and their paths into global war.

Some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe produce high-energy gamma rays, and a new observatory in Mexico aims to expand the catalog of known gamma ray sources.

Rochester researchers and their collaborators have developed a way to transfer 2.05 bits per photon by using “twisted light.” The new approach doubles the 1 bit per photon that is possible with current systems that rely on light polarization and could help increase the efficiency of quantum cryptography systems.

Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew is often criticized for its portrayal of women as weak and submissive. But on Thursday, April 9, the University's International Theatre Program will present a new take on the classic comedy in a production performed by a largely male cast.

For the past five decades the Rolling Stones have enjoyed tremendous success as the original bad boys of rock for their image based on sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. But what many people don’t realize is that this hasn’t always been the case for the group, according to John Covach, director of the Institute for Popular Music.

Edward Ayers will appear on campus as the 2015 Distinguished Visitor in the Humanities. Ayers’ digital archive project, The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War, has been used in thousands of classrooms around the world.

In his new book, professor of history Stewart Weaver chronicles journeys of discovery from the pre-historic trek of humans across the land bridge over the Bering Strait some 12,000 years ago to the mid-20th century deep sea voyages of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.