Religious Studies

Speakers:

Karl Shuve, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, UVA

Renee Harrison, Associate Professor, African American & U.S. Religious History, Howard University

Natasha Heller, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, UVA

Stephanie D. van Hover, Professor, Curry School of Education and Human Development; Chair, Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, UVA

Agenda:

• 10:00 - 10:10 Introductions by Martien Halvorson-Taylor, with brief overview of teaching resources provided by Religion, Race & Democracy Lab.
• 10:10 - 10:30 "Religion and the Challenge of Gender Equity in Pluralist Democracies" - Karl Shuve
• 10:30 - 10:45 Q&A session 
• 10:45 - 10:50 Break
• 10:50 - 11:10 "E pluribus unum: Which Religion and Whose Democracy?” - Renee Harrison
• 11:10 - 11:25 Q&A session 
• 11:25 - 11:30 Break
• 11:30 - 11:50 "The Role of Religion in Taiwan's Democratization" - Natasha Heller
• 11:50 - 12:05 Q&A session 
• 12:05 - 12:10 Break
• 12:10 - 12:30 "Frameworks and Resources for Teaching Religion and Democracy" - Prof. Stephanie Van Hover
• 12:30 - 12:35 Break
• 12:35 - 12:50 Breakout rooms 
• 12:50 - 1:00 Break
• 1:00 - 1:15 Evaluations and goodbyes 

This event was hosted on October 24, 2020, 10:00 am on Zoom

Through the ages worldwide, the coexistence of different religious systems of thought and religious communities has posed great challenges and opportunities. This workshop for teachers will present three test cases of religious pluralism and religious conflict from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages as a vantage point from which to examine these phenomena and to consider the issues in relation to contemporary conflicts. Examples will be Roman, Etruscan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions in interaction. After the three presentations by UVA faculty, there will be a general discussion, Dr. Jennifer Sublette, with a view to how these subjects can be treated in the classroom with middle school and high school students both in historical terms and as a mirror for the world today. 

Lunch will be provided.

Speakers:

Anthony Corbeill, Basil Gildersleeve Professor of Classics, UVA

Karl Shuve, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, UVA

Jennifer Sublette, Director of Professional Learning, Albemarle County Public Schools

Jessica Andruss, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, UVA

Agenda:

• 9:00 - 9:45 Registration & Introductions
• 9:45 - 10:45
• ‘Religious Pluralism as a Tool for Political Stability in Republican Rome.’ - Anthony Corbeill. Roman religion could be remarkably welcoming of foreign cults (as with the Anatolian ‘Earth Mother’ in 204 BC) or strongly opposed (as with worship of Bacchus in 186). I will focus on a case of religious syncretism for which we have vivid contemporary evidence: the use of Etruscan prophets (haruspices) by the Roman senate to resolve a seemingly irresolvable political crisis in 56 BC.
• 10:45 - 11:00 Break
• 11:00 - 12:00
• ‘Persecution, Pluralism, and the Challenge of Religious Difference in the Roman Empire.' - Karl Shuve. This presentation will examine the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, and consider how this historical example might shed light on challenges posed by religious difference in modern America. We will ask both what led the Romans, who were generally quite tolerant of the worship of foreign deities, to attempt to suppress Christianity, and how the experience of persecution shaped the early Christian movement, leaving a complicated legacy in the West.
• 12:00–1:00 Lunch 
• 1:00 - 2:00 ‘In the Heavens and On the Ground: Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Medieval Jerusalem.’ - Jessica Andruss. This presentation will address religious pluralism in Jerusalem during the early Islamic period (637–1099 CE). I’ll provide background on historical Jewish and Christian attachments to the city before introducing the Islamic elements. My focus will be on a foundational Islamic narrative about the prophet Muhammad’s miraculous “night journey” from Mecca to Jerusalem and his ascent from there through the heavens. The presentation will consider the power of religious narrative in shaping real ‘on the ground’ political and social conditions within a pluralistic society.
• 2:00 - 2:15 Break
• 2:15 - 3:15 General Discussion of pedagogical applications - Jennifer Sublette

This program is sponsored by the Virginia Center for the Liberal Arts and the UVA Lab in Dissecting Cultural Pluralism

This event was hosted on November 16, 2019, 9:00 am at Zehmer Hall, University of Virginia

A Workshop for Virginia High School Teachers at the University of Virginia

This workshop features leading scholars on American Religious History from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and is designed to have practical application for the classroom. We will focus on the complex and changing role of religion in American public life and politics and related shifts in the understanding of religious liberty and religious diversity.

Speakers:

Jennifer Sublette-Williamson, Facilitator, Social Studies, Dept. of Instruction, Albemarle County

Heather Warren, Associate Professor

Kathleen Flake, Bushman Professor of Mormon Studies

Matthew Hedstrom, Assistant Professor

Martien Halvorson-Taylor, Associate Professor and Associate Chair

Agenda:

• 9:00 - 9:30 Registration (coffee and tea are provided)
• 9:30 - 9:45 Welcome and Introductions - Martien Halvorson-Taylor
• 9:45 - 10:45 “How Can the U.S. Be ‘The Most Protestant’ and ‘The Most Religiously Diverse’ Society at the Same Time?” - Matthew Hedstrom
• 10:45 - 11:00 Break
• 11:00 - 12:00 “Making Sense of American Church-State Relations in the 21st Century” - Kathleen Flake
• 12:00 - 12:30 Lunch (provided)
• 12:30 - 1:30 “Diversifying American Religious History through Primary Sources: ‘A Bintel Brief,’ Salvation on Sand Mountain, ‘Let It Be,’ and Black Theology and Black Power” - Heather Warren
• 1:30 - 1:45 Break
• 1:45 - 2:45 Pedagogy Session on Religion in American History - Jennifer Sublette-Williamson

This program is sponsored by the Buckner W. Clay Endowment for the Humanities, the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion & the Center for Liberal Arts

This event was hosted on March 1, 2014, 9:00 am at the University of Virginia

Many students are not familiar with the backstories of Latin America's complex and dynamic past beyond the usual suspects in a world-history textbook such as the "triangular trade", the Mexican Revolution, and Simon Bolivar. Three UVA professors expert in Latin American history are ready to explore the region with you. After this one day workshop on 9 November at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville, you will be ready to enrich your units on Latin America. Under the sponsorship of the University's Center for the Liberal Arts, professors Herbert Braun, Joe Miller, and Brian Owensby will delve into this fascinating region beyond the surface facts and entertain your further questions. After a truly 'free lunch', Stephanie D. van Hover, Dept. Chair of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education at UVa, will coordinate participating educators' efforts to build the morning's proceedings (and more) into their curricula.

This program is sponsored by the Center for the Liberal Arts and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

This event was hosted on November 9, 2013, 4:00 am at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Conference Room

This workshop features leading scholars on Islam from University of Virginia and is designed to have practical application for the classroom. We will focus on examining Islam in its historical contexts to understand how modern Muslims, in all their diversity, engage with this history in contemporary debates over ethics, religious practices, and gender.

Speakers:

Martien Halvorson-Taylor, Associate Professor & Associate Chair, Religious

Ahmed al-Rahim, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies, University of VirginiaStudies 

Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, University of Virginia

Sara Omar, Visiting Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures, University of Virginia 

Jennifer Sublette-Williamson, Facilitator, Social Studies, Department of Instruction, Albemarle County

Agenda:

• 9:00 - 9:30 Registration (coffee and tea are provided)   
• 9:30 - 9:45 Welcome and Introductions - Martien Halvorson
• 9:45 - 10:45 “Islam as a World Religion: Sacred History, Empire, and Modernity” (and implications for teaching) - Ahmed al-Rahim
• 10:45 - 11:00 Break
• 11:00 - 12:00 “Beyond the Arab Heartland: Islam in Africa” (and implications for teaching) - Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton
• 12:00 - 12:45 Lunch (meal is provided)
• 12:45 - 1:45 “Women in Islam” (and implications for teaching) - Sara Omar
• 1:45 - 2:00 Break
• 2:00 - 3:00 Pedagogy Session on Islam in the Curriculum - Jennifer Sublette-Williamson

This program is sponsored by the Buckner W. Clay Endowment for the Humanities, the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion & the Center for Liberal Arts

This event was hosted on September 28, 2013, 9:00 am at the Jefferson School - African American Heritage Center, 233 4th St NW, Charlottesville, VA 22903

The last three decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in both Jewish-German relations and German Jewish literary and cultural history. Within the United States, growing numbers of course offerings, conference panels (e.g. at the Conferences of German Studies Association [GSA] and the Association for Jewish Studies [AJS]), the founding in 2009 of the biennial Duke University-Carolina Conference on German Jewish Studies and, more recently, its biennial periodical Nexus as well as many other publications, academic and otherwise (books, journal articles and special issues, conference volumes, popular histories, films, etc.) attest to the growth of interest.

In Germany and Austria, one finds at both the popular and academic levels a perhaps even more intense growth of interest attested to by the founding of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, one of the most visited museums in all of Germany, the not always unproblematic fascination with Klezmer Music, film festivals, “Offene Tage der Synagoge” in major cities, as well as the many publications, both scholarly and popular, and various other cultural events throughout both countries. Similarly, the number of universities and institutes focusing on this subject has grown noticeably in the last three decades or so—with the founding of the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg in the 1979, the Simon-Dubnow-Institut für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur at the University of Leipzig in 1995, the Centrum für Jüdische Studien in Graz in 2000-01, and, in 2011-12, the inter-university Zentrum für Jüdische Studien in Berlin, involving all the Berlin-area universities. Such institutes exist alongside and complement the older, more established institutes for Judaistik and Jüdische Geschichte in places like the Freie Universität Berlin, the Universität Wien or in Hamburg. In so doing, they attest to the widening horizon of interest in “Jewish Studies” across a range of disciplines—from History, Religion and Literary Studies to Art History, Film, Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, Memory Studies, and beyond.

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce some of the key areas of this scholarship and popular interest, to help participants gain a greater sense of the breadth and depth of these fields, the richness of German Jewish culture and past, the complexities of Jewish-German relations today, and the contemporary relevance this subject has in Germany and Austria. 

Speakers:

Asher Biemann, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, and former Director of Program in Jewish Studies, University of Virginia

Jennifer Hansen-Glucklich, Visiting Assistant Professor, German Program of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages, University of Mary Washington

Jeffrey Grossman, Associate Professor of German, University of Virginia

Joel Rubin, Associate Professor, Director of Music Performance, McIntire of Music, University of Virginia

Agenda:

• 9:00 - 9:30 Registration and Coffee
• 9:30 - 10:15 "Das Italienbild der deutschen Juden" - Asher Biemann
• 10:15 - 11:00 “Klezmer-Musik im Nachkriegsdeutschland” - Joel Rubin
• 11:00 - 11:15 Coffee Break
• 11:15 - 12:00 “Landscapes of Memory: Places and Cultures of Holocaust Memory in Post-War Germany” - Jennifer Hansen-Glucklich
• 12:15 - 1:00 “Die Unentrinnbarkeit von Erinnerung: Juden in  Deutschland und Österreich heute” - Jeffrey Grossman
• 1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
• 2:00 - 3:00 Round-Table Discussion

This event was hosted on April 27, 2013, 9:00 am at Zehmer Hall University of Virginia