Countering Legacies of Racial Violence

It is clear from scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, health sciences, and other fields that we remain haunted by histories of racialized violence, socially embodying and reproducing historical trauma. In this talk I will discuss my collaborative work to advance understanding of these legacies and increasing focus on redress. Critical engagement with monuments and memorials as sites of racialized violence, and corresponding efforts to advance equal justice and opportunity through reparative commemorative work, are of particular interest. Through research and creative projects, teaching, and service, I am probing theoretical and practical aspects of "monumental antiracism," and the pressing question of whether and how anti-racist memory work offers a durable antidote to legacies of historical racial violence.

Talk by Geoff Ward, Professor of African & African and Faculty Affiliate in Sociology and American Culture Studies, and Director of the WashU & Slavery Project.

Pictured (thumb): Scene from an exhibition of artist Sonya Clark's work, Unraveling & Unraveled; (header) Section commemorating lynchings in Missouri, National Memorial to Peace & Justice, photo by Geoff Ward.