SJS

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 […]

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 Summer Jefferson Symposium Lead Faculty John Ragosta Mount Vernon, the home of a Virginia president who was not a Jeffersonian, just announced a major initiative to include an exhibit concerning slavery in its museum. The exhibit, scheduled to open in October, will be entitled Lives Bound Together, and will look at the relationship […]

Written by: John Ragosta, Summer Jefferson Symposium Lead Faculty; Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Fellow Teaching history has changed a great deal in my lifetime. Of course, the fixation on dates, names, battles, and speeches went out many years ago – although it lingers in too  many places like old leftovers in the fridge. And […]