Hold That Thought

Ever wonder why some hits feel good when the bat connects with the pitch, while others leave your hands ringing? Or exactly how a pitcher throws a ball that seems to curve just as the batter swings? Physicist Dr. Kasey Wagoner says, like most things in our universe, it all comes back to physics. Just in time for MLB playoff season, he talks about the forces involved in different pitches and how the "sweet spot" of the bat works.

High in the rugged mountains of Nepal, communities in the valley of Nubri are confronting rapid changes. In recent years, the majority of school-age children from Nubri leave their villages to be educated in boarding schools or monasteries outside the valley. What opportunities do these children have once they finish school, and what happens to these ethnically Tibetan communities if the children never come home? Geoff Childs, an anthropologist from Washington University in St. Louis, has been working in Nubri for decades. Here, he explains a complicated story of outmigration and cultural change.

Modern debates over energy and natural gas often center on environmental issues and global warming. Yet in places like Bolivia, where many citizens still use firewood as their main energy source, the conversation can sound much different. There, the desire for convenience and progress often overrides environmental concerns, and in some cases, also the rights and safety of indigenous people. Anthropologist Bret Gustafson is working on a book about gas and power in Bolivia. Here, he discusses the complicated relationship between energy, politics, the environment, and indigenous rights.

Tobacco has been a global industry for more than a century. But in the era of corporate social responsibility, how do tobacco companies justify their push to sell even more cigarettes around the world? Trade agreements like the currently proposed Trans Pacific Partnership make it easier for tobacco corporations to flood markets in low- and middle-income countries, where 80% of the world's billion tobacco users live. Peter Benson, an anthropologist from Washington University in St. Louis and author of Tobacco Capitalism, weighs in.

In the United States, a woman's monthly period is rarely more than a slight inconvenience. In places like the Tigray region of Ethiopia, however, the story is much different. There, many girls face adolescence without information and without basic materials like sanitary pads or tampons. Confused and embarrassed, menstruating young women often stay home from school. With the help of Dr. Lewis Wall from Washington University in St. Louis, one Ethiopian woman is attempting to create a local, sustainable solution to this problem. You can find out more about their efforts at www.dignityperiod.org.

Most authors have a "signature moment," a theme or scene that reoccurs in their work as if they're exploring it from every angle, and Robert Wiltenburg believes that the quintessential Shakespearean theme is mercy. Wiltenburg, the former dean of University College and an adjunct associate professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, takes us through Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and romances to show how mercy evolves in each genre, highlighting great triumphs--and disasters--along the way.

Shakespeare wrote a number of strong and memorable female characters like Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cleopatra of Antony and Cleopatra, but would it be fair to call him a feminist? Not really, says our guest Jami Ake, assistant dean and senior lecturer in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. She explains why questions of gender and power were prominent in early modern England society and theater and examines the range of roles women take on in Shakespeare's plays.

By now it's clear that Shakespeare drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Robert Henke, a professor of drama and comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, studies the Bard in the European context and particularly his Italian sources and influences. He reveals the fingerprints of the famous Italian theater troupe, the Commedia dell'Arte, in Shakespeare's comedies and discusses the Italian plays and novellas at the heart of Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew.

The early modern English theater scene of was fairly small and highly competitive. Playwrights like Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Edmund Spenser were friends, but also rivals. They collaborated, imitated, and satirized each other equally as they jostled for success. Joe Loewenstein, a professor of English and director of the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University in St. Louis, returns to share stories about these relationships and discusses the fluid nature of authorship in theater at the time.

In 1592, the writer and critic Robert Greene accused the budding playwright William Shakespeare of plagiarism, and this stung the Bard deeply. Joe Loewenstein, professor of English and director of the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and the Digital Humanities Workshop, shares Shakespeares initial response to the critique and explains how, even decades later, the Bard was still responding to Greene--though not in the way you might expect. He also discusses the culture of imitation and plagiarism in the late 16th- and early 17th-centuries.