Confronting the Past: Transformative Justice in St. Louis and Beyond

A First-Year Ampersand Program

Grapple with the legacies of historical injustice in St. Louis and around the world, and build a collective understanding of local and global reparative efforts.

As a growing body of social science research attests, the continuing effects of historic injustice are among the world's most pressing problems. This rotating Ampersand course examines how communities understand and grapple with these legacies, especially relating to colonialism, slavery, genocide, and other systematic violence, using strategies of community remembrance and repair (including reparations processes, exhibits in and beyond museums, oral historical initiatives, and alterations to the monumental landscape) to advance transformative justice. The course combines grounding in reckonings with historic injustice in greater St. Louis with comparative engagement with other U.S. and global contexts. Engaging these issues from a variety of perspectives—spanning the humanities and social sciences, art and design, public health, law, and education—we will apply theoretical and empirical frameworks to existing or potential approaches to transformative justice that aim to address and repair historic harms. Our core goal is to work together to consider and build comparative and collective understanding of community reckonings with the legacies of historic injustice, informing local, national and global reparative efforts.

Header image credit: Giuseppe Milo, Free Derry Corner Northern Ireland (94834113), CC BY 3.0

How to Sign Up

The sign-up process with priority review for first-year programs and seminars begins on Monday, May 19, 2025, at 12 p.m. (CT). To participate in priority review, please submit your application in the first 24 hours after applications open or by Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at 12 p.m. (CT). The link to the application form will be available on the First-Year Programs homepage during that time. You will need your WashU Key to apply. For each of the Ampersand Programs you wish to rank in your top four choices, you will need to complete a separate statement of interest (no more than 500 words) answering a program specific question. In "Confronting the Past: Transformative Justice in St. Louis and Beyond" we will study how communities understand and grapple with legacies of historic injustice—associated with colonialism, slavery, genocide, and other systematic violence—as well as how they develop strategies of community remembrance and repair to advance transformative justice. The 2025 application question is: In 250-500 words please indicate what sparks your interest in these justice issues and, if applicable, any related experiences or encounters you have had in the U.S. or beyond.

First-Year Programs homepage

Courses

Fall Semester

The 2025-2026 Ampersand on Reckonings with Historic Injustice combines a local focus on St. Louis with global studies in the U.K., engaging academic and community partners in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Bristol, Liverpool, and London, England. We will broadly engage and reconsider “The Troubles,” looking across U.S. and U.K histories of slavery and colonialism, and considering how local communities operating within globalized contexts confront such legacies today. The fall course will develop a grounding in the scholarship on reckonings associated with remembrance efforts and other modes of reparative justice. We will focus on St. Louis and other U.S. contexts, visit local sites of reparative community remembrance, and meet organizers of these efforts. Assignments will include our collective development of a case study of efforts to productively confront the past in St. Louis and other U.S. cities, with the aim of publishing our work through the global Contested Histories project.

Spring Semester

The spring course will focus more closely on contested global commemorative landscapes, with a focus on contemporary reckonings with slavery and colonialism across the United Kingdom. Assignments will include working further with the Contested Histories project to develop case studies of efforts to productively confront the past in the U.K. The travel component of this Ampersand program will involve a visit to the U.K., where we will engage diverse sites and examples of reparative community remembrance, and compare and contrast efforts in the U.S. and U.K.

Geoff K. Ward

Professor of African and African American Studies

gward@wustl.edu
314-935-9884

Geoff Ward’s scholarship examines the haunting legacies of historical racial violence and implications for redress.

David Cunningham

Professor of Sociology

david.cunningham@wustl.edu
314-935-4741

Professor Cunningham’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of racial contention, with an emphasis on the scope and legacy of organized white supremacist action.