Class Highlight - St. Louis Black History, Culture and Civic Engagement

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Lynne Jackson speaks to AFAS students about her great-great-grandfather, Dred Scott.

AFAS Professor Geoff Ward and his colleague, David Cunningham, have been awarded a $500,000 Project Grant for their research titled "What Historical Newspapers Can Reveal About The Spread of Racial Terror"

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AFAS Professor Geoff Ward and his colleague, David Cunningham, Chair and Professor of Sociology, have received a $500,000 project grant for their research titled "Unveiling the Impact of Historical Newspapers on the Proliferation of Racial Terror." Utilizing digital text mining, Ward and Cunningham investigated the role of historical newspapers in fueling racial violence and explored its implications for our contemporary media landscape. For additional details on this compelling research, click the link below.

AFAS Alumni '10, Dr. Heather Skanes, highlighted in the New York Times for her work surrounding Black Maternal Health

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Heather Skanes, MD, (she/her) is a dedicated and compassionate obstetrician and gynecologist, committed to providing patient-centered care to the community of Birmingham, Alabama, through her practice at Oasis Women’s Health. A native of Birmingham, Dr. Skanes is deeply rooted in her community and actively supports causes such as Black Lives Matter, women's birth rights, and the empowerment of women everywhere. Dr. Skanes pursued her undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in African and African American Studies. Her academic background reflects her commitment to understanding and addressing healthcare disparities within the Black community. The New York Times recently featured Dr. Skanes in an article, highlighting her significant contributions to improving Black Maternal Health, further underscoring her dedication to equitable and accessible healthcare for all.

AFAS Highlights - Students/ Alumni/Faculty

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The faculty of the AFAS (African and African-American Studies) department is leading the way in research and public advocacy, both in St. Louis and on a national scale. To discover more about the incredible work our faculty is engaged in, click the "Read More" button below.

Class Acts: Kai Radford

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Danforth Scholar to work with St. Louis foster children

Faculty named to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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Jean Allman and Tristram R. Kidder are among nearly 270 newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies.

‘The battle for memory’: Mustakeem on the intertwining histories of race and medicine

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Sowande M. Mustakeem, in Arts & Sciences, discusses her seminar “Medicine, Healing and Experimentation in the Contours of Black History” and the importance of grappling with traumatic history.

Jean Allman: New Member Elected in 2023 American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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Jean Allman is AFAS's newly elected member of the American Academic of Arts & Sciences! She is the third AFAS faculty to join this prestigious honorary society, the others being Gerald Early and John Baugh.

Rwanda’s privatized polis and the people in the path of progress

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“When most non-Rwandans hear ‘Kigali’ or ‘Rwanda,’ they often think one word: ‘genocide,’” says Samuel Shearer, assistant professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Humanities. Shearer’s book-in-progress, “The Kigali After: A New City for the End of the World,” examines how this limited view of the city and its 1.2 million citizens has paved the way for outside investors to treat it as a clean slate on which to build an idealized, privatized, sustainable city of the future. “The (mostly non-Rwandan) authors of the Kigali City Master Plan claim to be rebuilding it from the ruins of the past,” Shearer says. “But Kigali residents have already rebuilt their own city.”

WashU welcomes 31st cohort of Mellon Mays fellows

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The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program supports original undergraduate research projects in the humanities and social sciences.

Six faculty members to join Arts & Sciences under Race and Ethnicity Cluster Hire Initiative

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The cluster hire initiative is funded by the Office of Provost and supported by the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity.

From Student Union to City Hall

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A recent Arts & Sciences graduate is using lessons from his time at WashU to bring change to his Louisiana hometown. 

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