Humanities Program Spotlight:

Alexander Waugh Visit a Great Success

For an extraordinary week in May, the College of Humanities hosted four very different events: a creative writing seminar in Denney Hall led by a distinguished biographer, a brown-bag lunch in the Philosophy Conference Room led by an authority on the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a fireside chat in the University Museum Room on the nature of God, and a lecture recital at the School of Music's Hughes Auditorium on the original performer of Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. That all events featured the same person, Alexander Waugh, is a testament to the range of this many-talented writer, publisher, reviewer, film producer, and occasional cartoonist (he has also won prizes for his pop-up books and musical theatricals). A reading from Fathers and Sons, Alexander Waugh's biography of his very literary family (he is the son of Auberon and the grandson of Evelyn Waugh), captivated his audience on Monday; the discussion of God, his biography of the figure of God in Western Civilization, played to a packed house on Thursday; his Friday performance of Chopin Etudes that were turned into one-handed works by a man who lost his arm in World War I and worked out how to redesign them for five fingers on a cardboard box with painted keys in a prison camp in Siberia was one of the most moving things this writer has ever seen.

Altogether, the College, with support from the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, the Center for the Study of Religion, the School of Music, and the Departments of Philosophy and English, benefited greatly from "A Week with Alexander Waugh," and was pleased to bring this author, theologian, musician, and literary son of literary fathers (not to mention cousin to our own Justin D'Arms, professor of Philosophy), to the University for a week that will long linger in the memory.