MONDAY: Cullen Murphy, the Atlantic’s managing editor, will be at Politics and Prose to talk about his new book Are We Rome? Murphy is of course referring to spreading corruption in Washington, our imperialist tendencies and the outsourcing of government work to private contractors. Personally, we’d rather read a book comparing our government with a different empire, but we won’t hold our breath on that one. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Dancer and award-winning actress Victoria Rowell…

We suppose the awards season has officially begun when the ‘Best Of’ lists start arriving in our mailbox, though it certainly feels like the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association has managed to get theirs out at a conspicuously early time each year since it began giving awards in 2002. Maybe they’re just trying to be the first out of the gate, and thus guaranteeing themselves a little ink in the inevitable pre-Oscar roundups. Or…