Joe Bartzel

Joe Bartzel is currently a Religion, Spirituality and Democratic Renewal Fellow with the Social Science Research Council. A native of Saint Louis’s historic African American neighborhood, The Ville, Joe received his PhD in religious studies from Indiana University where his dissertation, From Riot to Reconciliation: The Ferguson Commission and the Future of St. Louis, was supported by a number of external fellowships including the Forum for Theological Exploration as well as a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation). His book manuscript project, Commissioned Memories, examines institutional responses to the 2014 Ferguson protests in the context of a century-long history of report-based and commission politics in the United States, and points to truth and reconciliation commissions as a more promising model for a form of commission politics that can substantively redress the racial injustices endured by African American citizens in Saint Louis specifically and the nation more broadly.  Joe received his BA and master’s degrees from the University of Missouri, as well as master’s degree in historical theology at Eden Theological Seminary.