‘Truths and Reckonings’
“Amnesia is not the right word,” said Geoff K. Ward, “because we’ve forgotten without ever really knowing.” In “Truths and Reckonings,” the show he curated for Washington University’s Kemper Art Museum, Ward confronts histories of racist violence with the aim of untangling their continuing legacies.
Hope in a time of uncertainty
Unprecedented times present the opportunity to develop innovative, lasting and positive change. It’s in this spirit that the 8th McDonnell International Scholars Academy Symposium will proceed, beginning with a virtual global town hall meeting Oct. 8. The event, featuring scholars and leaders from around the world, is free and open to the public.
‘Uncontrollable Blackness’
In his new book, “Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York,” historian Douglas Flowe at Washington University in St. Louis investigates the meanings of crime, violence and masculinity in the lives of those facing economic isolation, segregation and overt racial attack.
Wicked Flesh
Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World
The story of freedom pivots on the choices black women made to retain control over their bodies and selves, their loved ones, and their futures.
War, reporting and the Tower of Babel
Richard Chapman, executive producer of “Dateline-Saigon,” discusses the documentary, the dangers journalists faced during the early years of the Vietnam War, and lessons for contemporary reporters and readers.
Juneteenth and collective progress
Douglas Flowe, assistant professor of history, discusses the history of Juneteenth and its continued resonance for all Americans.
When the conspiracy is real
Umbrella Man. Outside agitators. Agents provocateur. As protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd continue, conspiracy theories and “false flag” charges have flown fast and furious. But sometimes the conspiracy is real. In “F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature” (2015), William J. Maxwell, professor of English in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, details a decades-long harassment campaign waged against prominent African American writers and activists.
Explaining push to ‘defund police’
In the wake of national protests following the death of George Floyd, some activists are calling on cities to defund their police departments. But what does that mean exactly? Robert Motley, a PhD candidate in the Brown School and manager of the Race & Opportunity Lab at Washington University in St. Louis, explained it’s more of a reallocation of funds for public safety and health.
Uncontrollable Blackness
African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York
Early twentieth-century African American men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, segregation, a biased criminal justice system, and overt racial attacks by police and citizens. In this book, Douglas J. Flowe interrogates the meaning of crime and violence in the lives of these men, whose lawful conduct itself was often surveilled […]
The Great Leap Backward
Forgetting and Representing the Mao Years
It is now forty years after Mao Zedong’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, and more than fifty years since the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine. During this time, the collective memory of these events has been sanitized, reduced to a much-diluted version of what truly took place. Historical and sociological […]
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