Black Memory Work
Senior Seminar and Capstone in African and African American Studies - Spring 2020
Welcome
This site features the work of several students in the Spring 2020 senior seminar and capstone in the Department of African and African American Studies (AFAS) at Washington University in St. Louis.
As the 2020 seminar became impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting campus closure, our seminar moved to a virtual mode and participants were dispersed. We created this site and the seminar podcast to offset these disruptions, sustain connections, and promote seminar projects.
Theme: Black Memory Work
The AFAS Capstone challenges and supports graduating seniors in making sense of what they have studied and integrating and applying these insights through a meaningful culminating experience, organized around a theme. The 2020 Capstone was co-led by Professors Geoff Ward and Jeffrey McCune, and organized by the theme "Black Memory Work."
Our capstone sought to facilitate critical and practical engagement with this key agenda of African and African American Studies: the recovery, affirmation, preservation, and application of Black cultural memory.
We engaged this theme in discussion and development of thesis and research projects, related readings and writing, and more applied or translational work. This applied work - the capstone project - contributes to this repository of collective Black memory by translating our scholarly work into more accessible exhibitions of African and African American Studies - using social media, blogs, websites, video, and other tools.
We are proud of the work our graduating seniors have done and created this site and the accompanying podcast to share some of it, and to celebrate their achievements.
Seminar Project Spotlight
Below we profile several of the projects produced (and in progress) by participants in the 2020 seminar.
Seminar Podcast
Black Memory Work is a podcast supplementing the senior seminar and capstone in African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. The podcast was created to support the seminar as we became displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing a creative, asynchronous, and virtual space to develop and share ideas.
Find the latest episode below and click the "all episodes" button to access past episodes.
About AFAS
In 1969, Washington University began offering courses under the rubric of Black Studies. As a movement within education Black Studies promotes the liberation of African-descended peoples from the thralldom of Eurocentric hegemony. Fifty years later, that commitment lives on in today's Department of African and African-American Studies (AFAS). Our faculty pursue interests across the spectrum of African and African-American studies. In addition to our expertise in core subjects areas like English, history, sociology, and anthropology, AFAS faculty are actively engaged in interdisciplinary, practice-oriented fields across Washington University, including social work and public health, architecture and design, computer science, business, law, and education.
