History

Summer Jefferson Symposium, hosted by Lifetime Learning in UVA‘s Office of Engagement from June 21-24, was an opportunity for alumni, parents and friends to share in deep conversation about a brilliant and complicated man. John Ragosta, Summer Jefferson Symposium Faculty Leader, historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and […]

Lifetime Learning in UVA’s Office of Engagement hosted Summer Jefferson Symposium from June 21-24 and focused on Thomas Jefferson’s lasting legacies–the University of Virginia and Monticello. Matt Kelly’s article, first printed in UVAToday (6/18/18), takes an interesting look at the original firefighting plan for Jefferson’s Academical Village. Mr. Kelly is a University News Associate, University […]

  June in Charlottesville brings a sense of quiet beauty, with spring rains transitioning to verdant summer foliage. Helen A. Wilson, Senior Landscape Architect at the University of Virginia, offers a look at the trees that grace the Grounds in her article “Trees on the Lawn.” Ms. Wilson holds a BS in Architecture and a Master […]

In recognition of Earth Day on April 22, Justin McBrien, PhD Candidate, Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, has contributed “Living in the Anthropocene.” Justin was awarded the 2018 Frank Finger Graduate Fellowship for Teaching, awarded annually to a teaching assistant in the College of Arts & Sciences in recognition of stimulating […]

Written by Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, and Sheila M. Blackford, Librarian and Managing Editor of American President, UVA’s Miller Center. Follow them on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA and @Sheila_bl. All presidents since Herbert Hoover have established libraries to house their presidential archives and museums. Barack Obama’s will be situated on […]

Written by Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, UVA’s Miller Center. She is the author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier and Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA. In the very same week of the Academy Awards, I […]

  Written by William M. Ferraro, Research Associate Professor and Senior Associate Editor, The Washington Papers, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences George Washington still attracts attention.  Some one million people visit his Mount Vernon home every year.  Both scholarly and popular investigations of his life and role in historical events pour forth […]

Written by Deborah McDowell, Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, and Alice Griffin Professor of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences   Yesterday began the official celebration of Black History Month, founded by the Woodson Institute’s namesake, Carter Godwin Woodson.  To kick off the 28-day celebration, yesterday’s […]

Written by John Ragosta, Lead Faculty, Lifetime Learning Summer Jefferson Symposium; Fellow, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. John Ragosta column: originally published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Reprinted with permission.   Today is Religious Freedom Day, a chance to remember the critical importance to our nation of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom and […]

Written by John Ragosta, Faculty Leader, Summer Jefferson Symposium; Fellow, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities   We remember Thomas Jefferson primarily for his great accomplishments as a statesman, philosopher, and political leader, including the Declaration of Independence, his presidency, and his leadership of a political movement. But Jefferson lived until he was 83 years old, […]

Written by Barbara A. Perry, White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and Presidential Studies Director at UVA’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA   As I moved through the grocery check-out line this past weekend, my eye fixed on a tabloid headline, “JFK Assassin Worked for the CIA!”  Lee Harvey Oswald […]

Written by Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. Col’16, Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities, Arthur J. Morris Law Library, School of Law, University of Virginia   If you’ve ever walked down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland, then there’s a good chance that you missed it. No one would blame you. The gray stones of the city’s medieval […]

Reposted with permission from Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Beyond president’s poor numbers lies difficulty of beating out-of-power party incumbents Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor, Sabato’s Crystal Ball August 24th, 2017 Ever since Donald Trump won the presidency, 2018’s race for the Senate seemed to pit two powerful, competing forces against one another: the Republicans’ long and enticing […]

Written by Barbara Perry, White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and Presidential Studies Director at UVA’s Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.   We don’t typically think of John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump as leading comparable presidencies. Yet they both faced a right-wing faction of their party over the […]

Written by John A. Ragosta, faculty director of the Summer Jefferson Symposium offered by UVA’s Lifetime Learning, authored Patrick Henry: Proclaiming a Revolution (Routledge Press, 2016) and is the lecturer for the Coursera online course Patrick Henry: Forgotten Founder, co-sponsored by the Lifetime Learning and the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation.   Patrick Henry “certainly gave […]

Written by Barbara A. Perry, Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and the Presidential Studies Director at UVA’s Miller Center. She is the author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier and Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch. You can follow her on Twitter @BarbaraPerryUVA.     By […]