Geoff Ward
Director, WashU & Slavery; Professor of African and African American Studies; Sociology (Affiliate); American Culture Studies (Affiliate)
- Phone: 314-935-9884
- Email: gward@nospam.wustl.edu
Geoff Ward is an historical sociologist whose scholarship examines the racial politics of social control and pursuit of racial justice, historically and today, with a focus on racial violence, youth justice, and representative legal authority. In addition to research articles and essays, he is the author of The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2012), an award-winning book on the rise, fall, and lasting remnants of Jim Crow juvenile justice. Current projects examine broader histories of racial violence, their legacies, and implications for redress. Committed to a public-facing academic practice, Ward combines scholarly research and writing with creative and digital projects to support research and teaching, engage broader audiences, and facilitate the visibility, use and impact of this work. These include the Racial Violence Archiveand Monumental Anti-Racism, which gather and share information about legacies of racial violence and anti-racist commemorative interventions, and the exhibition Truths & Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice. Ward is also a member of the Reparative Justice Coalition of St. Louis, a community-based organization working to commemorate and address legacies of racist violence in our region.