The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom and the Religion, Race & Democracy Lab(RRD) at the University of Virginia are pleased to announce "Revisiting Religion and Place in Light of Environmental, Legal, and Indigenous Studies," a three-week residential institute for higher education faculty to be held in Charlottesville, VA from June 5-23, 2023.
The Institute brings together 18 faculty and advanced graduate students in religious studies and related fields from across the United States for an immersive exploration of critical new perspectives on the theme of "place." Given recent, dramatic advances on the study of place in the environmental humanities, social sciences, legal studies, and indigenous studies, the time is ripe for rethinking place as a fundamental feature of the study of religion.
The RRD, affiliate of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Democracy Initiative, will lead the project, with Professors Martien Halvorson-Taylor and Kurtis Schaeffer, Co-Directors of the Religion, Race & Democracy Lab.
The goals of the summer institute are:
To introduce scholars in religious studies and related fields to the enormously productive re-thinking of the idea of "place" that has occurred across disciplines in recent years.
To help scholars of religion to make better use of both substantivist and constructivist theories of place and space in religion.
To assist scholars in developing a richer and more nuanced understanding of the opportunities and pitfalls that come with using the category of "place" in thinking and teaching about diverse manifestations of human engagement with the world.
To strengthen participants' teaching and research through critical pedagogical reflection and workshops