Past Events

Why Institutions Matter: Religious Perspectives on Building and Sustaining Institutions in a Fractured Society

This dialogue between some of the nation’s foremost thinkers on institutions and religious pluralism will focus on the challenges and opportunities of building and sustaining civic institutions in a polarized society. Speakers include Richard Garnett, Notre Dame Law School; Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution; Kristen Deede Johnson, Western Seminary; and Yuval Levin, American Enterprise Institute. The panel will be moderated by John Inazu, who holds a joint appointment with the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the School of Law.

Richard W. Garnett is the Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law at University of Notre Dame Law School. He teaches and writes about the freedoms of speech, association, and religion and constitutional law more generally. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding the role of religious believers and beliefs in politics and society. 

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution. He is the author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize. His first book, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East, was named a Foreign Affair, Best Book of 2014.

Kristen Deede Johnson is the G.W. and Edna Haworth Professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership and the Dean and Vice President of academic affairs at Western Theological Seminary. Her teaching and scholarship engage areas of theology, discipleship and formation, justice, culture and political theory. In partnership with International Justice Mission, she and co-author Bethany Hanke Hoang recently wrote the award-winning The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance. In 2018, Kristen was named as one of “10 New or Lesser-Known Female Theologians Worth Knowing” by Christianity Today. 

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. 

John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion and holds a joint appointment in the School of Law and the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. Inazu’s scholarship focuses on the first amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and related questions of legal and political theory. 

Change Gon’ Come

Black Anthology aims to tell stories about the Black experience. Our hope is that viewers are immersed, become a part of that experience, and are motivated to learn more. This year’s play will bring to light the struggles African Americans face in their everyday lives and in neighborhoods. We get to see firsthand generations live through a seemingly similar cycle.

There will be a preshow panel at 6:15 pm each night.

Forum on Medicine, Race, and Ethnicity in St. Louis, Past to Future

The Importance of Racial Socialization Messages in the Lives of African-American Youth

In the MLA tradition of approaching a theme from multiple perspectives, our speakers address bridges and divides locally, internationally, and even across species.

Bridges & Divides

The current presidential administration began with a commitment to bridging political divides, even offering physical bridges in the form of an infrastructure bill to help meet that goal. Locally, the team at Health Equity Works has studied inequity created by geographical divide resulting from conscious choices to create a segregated city, and then explored recommendations and activities that dismantle regional divides.

The MLA lecture series is co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The series takes place every Saturday in February over Zoom.

In Conversation with Michelle Alexander

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics is honored to host Professor Michelle Alexander for a public conversation on the state of legal and social movements against mass incarceration. Since the publication in 2010 of Alexander’s sea-changing book The New Jim Crow, millions more Americans have been incarcerated in prisons and jails, sometimes held for years without a trial. But American conversations about incarceration have changed, with growing abolitionist movements as well as state and federal initiatives for carceral reform. Alexander’s work has done much to bring these issues to light.

Professor Fannie Bialek will ask Alexander about the state of legal and social movements for carceral reform and prison abolition and their invigoration of religious activism for social change. There will also be time for audience Q&A and a reception immediately following in nearby Umrath Lounge.

We hope you will join us in person or online for this Danforth Distinguished Lecture. Graham Chapel is open seating and doors will open at 6:00 p.m.

Free and open to all.

Wicked Women: White Women as Perpetrators of Mass Violence

The Wicked Women: White Women as Perpetrators of Mass Violence exhibition discusses the connection between whiteness, gender, and violence through women carrying out events and systems of mass violence and discrimination.

By looking at the Holocaust, the Namibian Genocide, the East St. Louis Massacre of 1917, chattel slavery, and white supremacy in conjunction with each other, viewers will learn the role that white women played, and continue to play, in each event and system, as well as how and why these events are connected through broader systems of colonialism and racism. The exhibition focuses on a selection of books, some of which are available to check out from Olin Library.

Victoria Limón curated this exhibition in association with Memory for the Future, a StudioLab and organization that aims to educate the St. Louis community on issues of racism and multidirectional memory.

Organized by University Libraries.

Header image: Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.

Office of Graduate Studies Fall Open House

You are invited to our Office of Graduate Studies in Arts & Sciences’ Open House taking place in-person on Saturday, September 30, 2023, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Charles F. Knight Center located on WashU's Danforth Campus in St. Louis, Missouri. Come join us and learn how to navigate your continued educational journey with WashU!
 

This event is a wonderful opportunity to explore the diverse programs we offer, meet with faculty and department representatives, connect with our student panel, and gain firsthand insights into graduate student life at WashU. We've organized sessions to assist you in navigating your financial pathway and understanding the array of funding options available to support your educational journey.

Did we mention lunch? Yes, a delightful meal is on us, ensuring you have an enjoyable and nourishing day while you explore all the possibilities that our university has to offer.

The event is free, but space is limited, so we encourage you to secure your spot early.

We hope you’ll take advantage of this unique opportunity to get a taste of life as a WashU graduate student. We look forward to welcoming you.

Click the button below to register today!

ITF Future Fridays: Foster Care Systems

Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work — from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility —ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make internal and public pledges to honor and achieve “diversity,” inequities persist through what Adia Harvey Wingfield calls the “gray areas”: the relationships, networks, and cultural dynamics integral to companies that are now more important than ever. The reality is that Black employees are less likely to be hired, stall out at middle levels and rarely progress to senior leadership positions. Adia Harvey Wingfield, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor, Vice Dean of Faculty Development and Diversity and Professor of Sociology at Washington University, is a leading sociologist and a celebrated author who researches racial and gender inequality in professional occupations. Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books’ YouTube page. Left Bank Books.

SLIFF: Human Ties spotlight

The Center for the Humanities sponsors the Human Ties lineup of films at the Saint Louis Film Festival (festival dates are Nov. 9–19). All center-sponsored screenings are free but tickets are required. Follow the link to each film webpage reserve your spot.

4 pm, Fri., Nov. 10: The Apology (2023), documentary by Mimi Chakarova. The Apology investigates an incident in the 1960s in which Alameda County and the City of Hayward dismantled the entire community of Russell City, pushing 1,400 residents out of their homes and off their land – all to claim the 200 acres for an industrial park. Screening and discussion with director Chakarova and producer Aisha Knowles. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Theater 9, 3700 Forest Park Ave., St. Louis, 63108
1 pm, Sat., Nov. 11: Bike Vessel (2023), documentary by Eric D. Seals. An African-American filmmaker explores health disparities within the Black community through the lens of his father, Donnie Seals Sr., who almost died after three open-heart surgeries. Nearly 20 years later, Seals makes a miraculous health recovery after discovering his love for bicycling. Washington University, Brown Hall, Room 100
4 pm, Sat., Nov. 11: The Body Politic (2023), documentary by Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough. The Body Politic follows Baltimore’s idealistic young mayor into office where he puts his personal and political future on the line to save his beloved city from chronic violence. Washington University, Brown Hall, Room 100
4 pm, Sun., Nov. 12: Racist Trees (2022), documentary by Sara Newens and Mina T. Son. Was the planting of tamarisk trees along the historically Black Lawrence Crossley neighborhood in Palm Springs a symbol of segregation? The battle to uproot them gained national attention and divided the community until their removal in 2018. Screening and discussion with co-director Newens. Washington University, Brown Hall, Room 100
1 pm, Tues., Nov. 14: Sandtown (2023), documentary by Isaiah Smallman. A filmmaker returns to his hometown neighborhood in West Baltimore, where he hopes to rediscover his past, reckon with his white privilege, and reconnect with the community that raised him. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Theater 9, 3700 Forest Park Ave., St. Louis, 63108
1 pm, Wed., Nov. 15: We Have Just Begun (2023), documentary by Michael Warren Wilson. In 1919, Black workers’ decades-long efforts to challenge exploitation in the Arkansas Delta culminated in the nation’s deadliest racial massacre and labor battle. We Have Just Begun takes its name from the secret pass-code used by a Black union of farmers and domestic workers organizing throughout the Arkansas Delta. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Theater 9, 3700 Forest Park Ave., St. Louis, 63108
7 pm, Wed., Nov. 15: Master of Light (2022), documentary by Rosa Ruth Boesten. George Anthony Morton is a classical painter who spent 10 years in federal prison for dealing drugs. While incarcerated, he nurtured his craft and unique artistic ability. Since his release, he is doing everything he can to defy society’s unlevel playing field and tackle the white-dominant art world. Contemporary Art Museum, 3750 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 63108
1 pm, Sat., Nov. 18: Birthing Justice (2022), documentary by Monique N. Matthews. America’s medical inequities have turned giving birth into a battlefield for too many Black women and their babies. Birthing Justice flips that narrative, centering the expertise and lived experiences of Black women and their advocates as they fix a broken system and transform the future, one birth at a time. Screening and discussion with executive producer and co-writer Denise Pines. Washington University, Brown Hall, Room 100

‘The Apology’ Screening & Discussion

Free screening but tickets are required. Follow link to film webpage.

Documentary by Mimi Chakarova. The Apology (2023) investigates an incident in the 1960s in which Alameda County and the City of Hayward dismantled the entire community of Russell City, pushing 1,400 residents out of their homes and off their land – all to claim the 200 acres for an industrial park. Screening and discussion with director Chakarova and producer Aisha Knowles.

‘Bike Vessel’ Screening

Free screening but tickets are required. Follow link to film webpage.

In Bike Vessel (2023), a documentary by Eric D. Seals, an African-American filmmaker, explores health disparities within the Black community through the lens of his father, Donnie Seals Sr., who almost died after three open-heart surgeries. Nearly 20 years later, Seals makes a miraculous health recovery after discovering his love for bicycling.

‘The Body Politic’ Screening

Free screening but tickets are required. Follow link to film webpage.

Documentary by Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough. The Body Politic (2023) follows Baltimore’s idealistic young mayor into office where he puts his personal and political future on the line to save his beloved city from chronic violence. 

‘Racist Trees’ Screening & Discussion

Free screening but tickets are required. Follow link to film webpage.

Was the planting of tamarisk trees along the historically Black Lawrence Crossley neighborhood in Palm Springs a symbol of segregation? The battle to uproot them gained national attention and divided the community until their removal in 2018. Racist Trees (2022), documentary by Sara Newens and Mina T. Son. Screening and discussion with co-director Newens.

The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity

The paradox of poverty amid plenty has plagued the United States throughout the 21st century – why should the wealthiest country in the world also have the highest rates of poverty among the industrialized nations?

Based upon the ideas in his latest book, Mark Rank will explore the answers to this paradox. He will outline a unique explanation that he has developed over the years, along with ideas and strategies for addressing poverty.

‘Birthing Justice’ Screening & Discussion

Free screening but tickets are required. Follow link to film webpage.

America’s medical inequities have turned giving birth into a battlefield for too many Black women and their babies. Birthing Justice (2022 documentary by Monique N. Matthews) flips that narrative, centering the expertise and lived experiences of Black women and their advocates as they fix a broken system and transform the future, one birth at a time. Screening and discussion with executive producer and co-writer Denise Pines.