Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity, WUSTL

06/02/2026

CRE² is excited to welcome Assistant Professor Nadirah Farah Foley as a Spring 2027 faculty fellow.

Her research examines how people experience and make sense of class, race, place, and inequality, especially educational inequalities. In her current work, she focuses on suburban communities, which are home to an increasing share of the population, rising racial and ethnic diversity, and rising inequality.

Learn more about our Spring 2027 faculty fellows: https://cre2.wustl.edu/research/funding-opportunities/faculty-fellowships/

06/01/2026

CRE²’s “Perspectives in Public Leadership: A Mayoral Conversation” event is featured in the Center for the Humanities article, “Power, Politics and Pressure: Race and City Leadership.”

Written by WashU student and Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellow Lauren Perkins, the article reflects on the conversation between former St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and current and former mayors from across the country, exploring the realities of Black political leadership in American cities.

From questions of representation and structural inequality to the pressures placed on Black elected officials, the article considers both the possibilities and limitations of political leadership in creating meaningful change.

Read the full article here: https://humanities.washu.edu/news/lauren-perkins-power-politics-and-pressure-race-and-city-leadership

05/29/2026

Join CRE²'s inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow Sophia Monegro and fellow scholars Ruth Pión and Elise A Mitchell for the Spanish Paleography Summer Program: Transcribing the Cimarronas Slavery Archive.

As part of the broader From Ayiti to St. Louis initiative, this collaborative program connects archival research, Atlantic African diaspora history, and digital humanities through the work of the Cimarronas project, a digital archive dedicated to recovering and amplifying the histories of Black and Indigenous women in colonial Ayiti-Quisqueya.

Washington University students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to register and engage with this unique opportunity to learn from leading scholars while contributing to ongoing efforts to expand access to histories of slavery, resistance, and the African diaspora.

Register now: https://form.jotform.com/261465395093060

05/28/2026

CRE² is excited to welcome Assistant Professor Nathan Dize as a Spring 2027 faculty fellow.

His research is situated at the crossroads of French Caribbean literary and intellectual history, cultural studies, translation studies, and the digital humanities. He explores how literature enables Haitian writers to practice intimate and collective rites of mourning across time and space, including in the wake of dictatorship, migration, and earthquakes. He also explores how Black translators of Francophone African and Caribbean literature crafted translations that challenged academic disciplines as well as literary canons and markets.

05/27/2026

CRE² is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Matthew Hayes as CRE²’s next Associate Director for Research and Scholarship.

Dr. Hayes is Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis, where his research, teaching, and service are deeply grounded in the study of race, politics, and inequality. His scholarship — spanning descriptive representation, racial and ethnic politics, political psychology, and legislative behavior — has appeared in leading journals including the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics, and spans topics from the symbolic and substantive dimensions of Black political representation to the role of vocal pitch in congressional speech.

05/22/2026

Congratulations to CRE² graduate fellow Naomi Kim on being named a 2026 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow.

The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious fellowship for PhD candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose work engages questions of ethics, religion, morality, and values. Since 1981, the fellowship has supported more than 1,400 doctoral scholars across the country.

Kim’s dissertation, Salvation By the Book: Race, Religion, and Reading Practices in Asian American Literature, examines how Christianity shapes the ways Korean American writers understand history, trauma, and community.
https://newcombefoundation.org/news/press-release-2026-charlotte-w-newcombe-doctoral-dissertation-fellows-named/

05/21/2026

CRE² is excited to welcome Professor Ila Sheren as a Fall 2026 faculty fellow.

Her research considers questions of ethnicity, particularly Latinx identity and alliances across the Global South, in terms of borders and border methodologies.

Learn more about our Fall 2026 faculty fellows: https://cre2.wustl.edu/research/funding-opportunities/faculty-fellowships/

05/20/2026

Congratulations to CRE² faculty affiliate Douglas Flowe on being named a 2026–27 Residential Fellow of the National Humanities Center, one of the nation’s leading institutes for advanced humanities research.

Flowe’s fellowship will support his book project, American Darkness: Black Men in New York’s Jim Crow Prisons, which examines the experiences of incarcerated Black men and the history of prison reform in early 20th-century New York. He is one of just 29 fellows selected nationwide for the 2026–27 academic year.

Douglas Flowe, an associate professor of history in WashU Arts & Sciences, has been named a 2026-27 fellow of the National Humanities Center.

05/20/2026

CRE² is excited to welcome Professor Raven Maragh-Lloyd as a Fall 2026 faculty fellow!

She is interested in Black publics online who deploy their social and cultural tools in order to challenge dominant institutions and narratives.

Learn more about our Fall 2026 faculty fellows:

05/18/2026

Upcoming Fall 2026 Courses: Take a look at some of the race, ethnicity, and equity-related courses that will be taught by CRE² faculty affiliates.

In Race, Film, and American Politics, Matthew Hayes will explore how visual storytelling shapes public opinion, influences policy discourse, and frames conversations around race, inclusion, and national identity in the United States. Through film screenings and political science research, students will examine motion pictures not simply as entertainment, but as political texts that impact the understanding of power and social change. This is an introductory course with no prerequisites. Students can reach out to Prof. Hayes with any questions they have.