News

What could be more epic than reading an epic poem in the way it would have been read more than two thousand years ago? How about reading it in English from beginning to end? The Western Michigan University World Languages department is doing a live marathon reading of Virgil’s The Aeneid on Friday.

For as long as there have been wars, there have been stories about the brave soldiers who fought in them. But what about the others? On Friday, Fontana Chamber Arts and the Western Michigan University School of Music, along with WMU actors and dancers, will tell a story about a very different kind of soldier.

A new state report says the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill did not cause contamination of residential water wells that threatens human health. The final “health assessment” by the Department of Community Health says no oil-related organic compounds were found in wells near the disaster in Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties.

When is a building like a flower? One answer is: when it is built according to the standards of the Living Building Challenge™. The initiative launched by the International Living Future Institute seeks to reduce or eliminate the effect of human structures on the natural world.  

Western Michigan University Philosophy Professor Fritz Allhoff says there are many problems with torture, but he says it can be justified in some cases to save lives. That’s the premise of Allhoff’s book Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs and Torture (University of Chicago Press).