bell hooks and the Power of Teaching: A Reflective Panel Discussion

A panel of WashU faculty, administrators, and staff will reflect on the life and legacy of bell hooks, with a particular focus on insights and lessons gleaned from Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom and Teaching Community: a Pedagogy of Hope.

Panelists

• Adrienne Davis, J.D. William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law; Founder & Co-director of the Law & Culture Initiative; Professor of Organizational Behavior and Leadership, Olin Business School
• Anna Gonzalez, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
• Meg Gregory, PhD, Associate Director for Faculty Programs and Services, Center for Teaching and Learning
• Eliza Williamson, PhD, Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Romance Language & Literatures
• Rafia Zafar, PhD, Professor of English, African and African-American Studies, and American Culture Studies

This event is open to members of the WashU community.

The Future of Black Comics Inside and Outside of the Academy

This reprise of the very first panel discussion at the Black Comic Book Festival in 2011 will explore the ever-expanding field of Black comics scholarship that charts the cultural and historical significance of Black representation in comic books, sequential art, graphic novels, and animation. Featured guests include Rebecca Wanzo (author of The Content of Our Caricature), Qiana Whitted (author of EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest), and JoAnna Davis-McElligatt (author of the forthcoming BOOM! Splat: Comics and Violence). 10th Annual Black Comic Book Festival, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Is Professionalism a Racist Construct?

The term “professionalism” has at times been used to silence and marginalize people of color, when attributes of appearance, language or interactions that have nothing to do with job knowledge or constructive collegial relationships are labeled as “unprofessional”. In this context, so-called professionalism is coded language, a construct that upholds institutional racist policies and excluding practices.

This presentation will explore dismantling white supremacy and privilege in varied contexts while upholding social justice and advancing effective workplaces in which all contributors can bring their full selves to the job site.

This presentation is part of the Brown School's recognition of Black History Month.

John Darnielle (Devil House) in conversation with author and musician G’Ra Asim

Mountain Goats’ singer-songwriter John Darnielle will be in conversation with author and musician G’Ra Asim, assistant professor of English, Washington University.

Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success and a movie adaptation to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Chandler finds himself in Milpitas, California, a small town whose name rings a bell — his closest childhood friend lived there, once upon a time. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected — back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.

Darnielle’s first novel, Wolf in White Van, was a New York Times best-seller, National Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction, and widely hailed as one of the best novels of the year. Left Bank Books. 

Art, Museums and the Fear of a Black Planet

Ten years after the publication of her book Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, scholar and curator Bridget R. Cooks discusses art, museums and demands for change in the age of Black Lives Matter. She considers the anxieties that Blackness provokes for rethinking art history and museum practices, and explores how artists are already imagining worlds of Black freedom.

Bridget R. Cooks is associate professor in the Department of Art History and the Department of African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on African American artists, Black visual culture and museum criticism. Cooks has worked in museum education and has curated several exhibitions, including Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California (2018), Pasadena Museum of California Art; Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective at the California African American Museum (2019), CAAM); and the nationally touring exhibition The Black Index.

Lois D. Conley, founder, president and CEO of the Griot Museum of Black History, will serve as moderator.

Black Girlhood Studies in Conversation with Dr. Nazera Sadiq Wright

In this conversation, Nazera Sadiq Wright will discuss her book Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century and recent digital humanities project, “DIGITAL GI(RL)S: Mapping Black Girlhood in the 19th Century.” Wright is associate professor of English and African American and Africana studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century (University of Illinois Press, 2016), which won the 2018 Children’s Literature Association’s Honor Book Award for Outstanding Book of Literary Criticism. Her digital humanities project, “DIGITAL GI(RL)S: Mapping Black Girlhood in the 19th Century” documents the cultural activities of black girls living in Philadelphia in the 19th century. In 2019, she was elected to the American Antiquarian Society. Fellowships through the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Bibliographical Society of America funded archival research for her second book, Early African American Women Writers and Their Libraries. Funded by the Center for Race, Ethnicity & Equity and co-sponsored with African and African American Studies; Institute for Public Health; American Culture Studies; and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

RE: Ebony and Jet

As a complement to Lorna Simpson’s use of Ebony and Jet magazines in her CAM exhibition Lorna Simpson: Heads, this RE: takes interest in the role of these preeminent publications in Black visual culture and media. Moderated by art historian and curator Bridget Cooks (University of California, Irvine), this program will take the format of a public seminar and community celebration. Cooks will provide context and facilitation, which will invite contributions from both invited guests and the general public in response to the question: What do Ebony and Jet mean to you? Participation with a range of voices are welcome, including scholars, artists, historians, journalists and readers of Ebony and Jet. A reception and art-making station will be available following the event. Presented by Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity at Washington University.

Black Anthology 2022: Asifuye Mvua Imemnyeshea

Black Anthology is dedicated to telling stories from across the Black diaspora. In keeping with that tradition, this year’s production explores issues of the diasporic divide, as well as navigating life within systems of oppression. Black Anthology is a student-written, choreographed, directed and designed production with the goal of leaving the audience wrestling with questions of their own. This year, we ask: How am I shaped by the systems (and people) around me? How does one contend with/make sense of tradition in a changing society? 

Tickets are $10. You must be fully vaccinated to attend and the theatre will be sold at reduced capacity. There will be a free live-streamed version on Saturday, February 19 in the evening. For more information on that experience, please sign up here.

Policymaking through a Racial Equity Lens

Structural racism in laws and legislation have created gross inequities throughout every system of our society, ultimately encumbering our nation’s potential for greatness. Addressing these disparities requires that we analyze how current policies perpetuate racialized outcomes, and redesign policies to advance equity. Only then can we unlock the power and the promise of policy making as a tool of justice.

This Brown School Curriculum Showcase event is part of our recognition of Black History Month.

Counter/Narratives of Independence: Celebrating Juneteenth

juneteenth flyer June 2022.jpg

Media Root

Public Tour: ‘Shaved Portions’

Join L. Irene Compadre, founding principal of Arbolope Studio and lecturer in the Sam Fox School, and Leslie Markle, curator for public art, for a twilight tour of Chakaia Booker’s monumental installation Shaved Portions, on view at the intersection of Skinker Blvd. and Brookings Drive. 

Free and open to the public.

Shaved Portions was originally commissioned by Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center for the Campbell Art Park in Oklahoma City. It is presented at the Kemper Art Museum courtesy of the artist and the Washington University in St. Louis Art on Campus program.

20th Annual Mary Meachum Celebration

You're invited to be a part of history in the making at the 20th Annual Mary Meachum Celebration on Saturday, October 1, 2022 at Missouri's first nationally recognized Underground Railroad site - the Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing on the Mississippi Greenway.

Each year, this event shines a spotlight on Black St. Louis history through theater performances, music, and activities for the whole family in a festive atmosphere with opportunities to shop, dine, and learn about community resources. The event takes place from 12 pm to 5 pm, but don't miss the main event: historical reenactments looking back over 20 years of celebrations from 3 pm to 4 pm.

The event is FREE and for people of all ages. For more information, visit www.MaryMeachum.org.

The event is significant to the WashU & Slavery project because several of the people who sought freedom by crossing the Mississippi River at this site in 1855 were enslaved by people who founded and shaped Washington University. Learn more about Esther, one of the freedom-seekers, who had been enslaved to WashU benefactor Henry Shaw.

Where is the Mary Meachum Site?

The site is located on the Mississippi Greenway. Several sections of the greenway are currently impacted by construction. To bike or walk to the site, you can park in North Riverfront Park and ride south on the greenway. To drive there, take Highway 70 to Grand Ave: East toward river; North on Hall to Prairie; Right on Prairie to site & parking.

Who was Mary Meachum?

Mary Meachum (1801–1869) and her husband, Reverend John Berry Meachum, were American abolitionists who dedicated their lives to educating and freeing enslaved people.  As part of Reverend Meachum’s church, he established a school for free and enslaved black students called the “The Candle Tallow School.” After the state of Missouri banned all education for black people in 1847, the Meachum’s moved their classes to a steamboat in the middle of the Mississippi River, which was beyond the reach of Missouri law. He provided the school with a library, desks and chairs, and called it the “Floating Freedom School.”  The Meachum’s home on Fourth Street in St. Louis was a safe house on the Underground Railroad. They also helped enslaved people escape to Illinois, where slavery was outlawed. Their work involved considerable risk due to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850- a law authorizing the hunting and capture of escaped enslaved people and requirement that they be returned to their enslavers.

Reverend John Berry Meachum grew up enslaved in Virginia and Kentucky before earning enough money to purchase his freedom. Before leaving Kentucky, he met Mary, an enslaved woman who was set to be moved by her enslavers to St. Louis. John followed Mary to St. Louis where he bought her freedom and eventually established the First African Baptist Church, the first black congregation in St. Louis. After John’s death in 1854, Mary Meachum continued their work educating and freeing enslaved people.

What is the significance of the Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing Site?

On the night of May 21, 1855, in the area that is now part of the Mississippi Greenway: Riverfront Trail north of the Merchant’s bridge, Mary Meachum attempted to help a small group of enslaved people cross the Mississippi River to Illinois where slavery was outlawed. However, enslavers and law enforcement officials caught at least five of the enslaved people and arrested Mary for her participation in the plot. She was charged in criminal court for helping the “fugitives” escape. In 2001, the National Park Service recognized the site as part of the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Intersections: Black and Indigenous Sound in the Early Atlantic World

Join us in exploring the intersections of Black and Indigenous sounds and music in the early Atlantic world. The event will feature short presentations from leading scholars, Q&A sessions, music, and a performance by the Charlottesville-based band Lua, known for their innovative blend of Latin-American and Appalachian tradition. The event is free and open to all.

This public event is part of a two-day symposium that focuses on sound in the early Atlantic world. In recent decades, thinkers in Black Studies and Indigenous Studies have transformed our understanding of this region's deeply multicultural past. But disciplinary, geographic, and linguistic divides can make it difficult for those working in diverse fields to bring research in these areas into dialogue. This symposium gathers scholars of music, history, literature and languages to converse about early Indigenous and Black performances in Latin America, the colonial United States, Atlantic Africa, Europe, and throughout the Atlantic basin.

This event is timed to coincide with Hispanic heritage month and Indigenous People’s Day in order, to highlight intersections among Indigenous and Black performances in Latin-American and Anglo American colonial histories. In the spirit of collaboration, participants converse across disciplines in pursuit of a more inclusive understanding of the colonial past.

Collective, interdisciplinary thinking is an important “next step” in the burgeoning field of early Atlantic sound. By moving beyond traditional subjects, geographies, and disciplinary divides, scholars can work together to tackle common challenges and better attune our ears to harmonies and resonances throughout the vast region.

Humanities Research Center, College of Humanities and Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University
 

A Conversation on Race and Computing

Missouri Historical Review Author Series: Kelly Schmidt on Slavery and the Catholic Church in Missouri

Schmidt combines extensive research in church archives and other repositories with contemporary mapping techniques to recover the identities of individuals largely obscured by traditional histories. In reconstructing the life experiences of those enslaved by Catholic individuals and institutions, she explores their long-term significance in shaping Catholicism within the emerging state of Missouri while tracing the religious and kinship networks by which they established a sense of community for themselves. Her talk will focus in part on the Nesbit family, tracing three generations through enslavement by Bishop Louis William Valentine DuBourg in 1822, agonizing separations as they were sent to various individuals and institutions within the Church, and finally their first successful freedom suit in the early 1840s.

The program is free, but registration is required. Please register here.

Pictured: Eliza Nesbit, who was enslaved to Bishop Louis William Valentine DuBourg and the Vincentians, then sold to the Religious of the Sacred Heart.

Wakanda and Beyond: Black Creatives and Comic Art

Please join us for a panel discussion inspired by the new film Wakanda Forever, moderated by Rebecca Wanzo, professor and chair of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at WashU and author of The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging (NYU Press, 2020).

Panelists include:

• Jonathan W. Gray, associate professor English at the CUNY Graduate Center & John Jay College, author of Civil Rights in the White Literary Imagination
• Clifford Thompson, author and illustrator of the graphic novel Big Man and the Little Men
• Qiana Whitted, professor of English and African American Studies, University of South Carolina; author, Eisner Award-winning book, EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest

See website to register.