
Author Mia Alvar receives 2016 Kafka Prize
On the 40th anniversary of its inception, the Janet Heininger Kafka Prize recognized a short story collection: Mia Alvar’s In the Country. The University awards the annual prize to a promising but less established American woman writer of fiction.

QuadCast: What are the origins of Halloween?
Halloween is a staple in American culture, but what are the origins of the holiday? Emil Homerin, professor of religion, discusses Halloween’s roots in mysticism with student host Nick Bruno in this episode of QuadCast, the University’s official podcast.

Valev Laube ’18: Creativity across media
Since he arrived, Laube’s picked up violin, honed graphic design skills, and actively participated in several cultural groups. “Rochester works for me,” he says.

Social critic Christopher Lasch’s enduring influence
In a recent interview, Vox editor Ezra Klein asked Hillary Clinton to name three books that have influenced how she thinks about policy. Clinton’s reply included the work of Christopher Lasch, who was a historian at the University of Rochester for nearly a quarter of a century.

‘Looking like the enemy’ examines WWII internment, current debates
An upcoming Humanities Project event reviews the experiences of the more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in remote relocation camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

2016 Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture explores exotic tourism in New Guinea
Rupert Stasch, a social anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, has worked for more than two decades among the Korowai people.

Film festival showcases contemporary French cinema
This fall’s theme reflects a combination of contemporary films and genres that have been selected by students in French classes, focusing on action, biopic, comedy, documentary & drama.

Take it easy: a celebration of country rock
Celebrating a style of music that dominated the 1970s, the University of Rochester’s Institute for Popular Music features an evening of country rock as part of its “In Performance” concert series.

Finding needles in chemical haystacks
Chemists have developed a process for identifying new catalysts that will help synthesize drugs more efficiently and more cheaply, by searching libraries for drugs with structure features similar to known catalysts.

6 stops on Bob Dylan’s rise to the top
His first album was a flop. He was loved in the United Kingdom before the United States. As people around the world start to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 75th birthday, rock historian John Covach, director of Rochester’s Institute for Popular Music, identifies six stops along the artist’s turbulent rise to the top in the 1960s.