We are starting a new tradition: a newsletter for our alums, friends, and supporters. UVA Religious Studies is a globally unique intellectual community. No other public institution teaches as many traditions and geographies through as many perspectives. We embody a fragile proposition that informed participation in democracy requires understanding religion and that democratic commitments to pluralism can inform how religion is studied. You are receiving this newsletter because you are part of that community, and we want to stay connected.
For our alums, we will be creating new ways for you to interact with current students and faculty. Students were enthusiastic about the alumni panel we piloted last year, so we’ll create more such events in the years ahead. Next year we will also convene our first alumni advisory council; let me know if you might be interested in joining. Some of you participated in the online faculty book launches that we held last year or follow the Sacred & Profane podcast. We will be developing more online possibilities for engagement and interaction.
I want to specially thank those who made a gift to the department in the last two years. As we were inventing new ways to teach and mentor through a pandemic, your support made a material difference to our ability to engage students and continue research. It also buoyed our spirits to know that there are people like you who care for what our department does. One of the ways we deployed those gifts was to support a new undergraduate fellows program, offering peer mentoring and student-driven forms of intellectual community. You can read more about that below.
If you have ideas for other ways we can stay connected, would like to make a gift, or have an interest in some particular part of our work, don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly.
Willis Jenkins
John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics
Chair, Religious Studies
willis.jenkins@virginia.edu
John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics
Chair, Religious Studies
willis.jenkins@virginia.edu
Peter Ochs and Larry Bouchard Retire, Awarded Emeritus Status
After 38 years of service to UVA, Larry D. Bouchard retired in May 2022 and was promoted by the Board of Visitors to Professor Emeritus. A scholar of religion and literature, Larry developed a distinctive way of approaching moral integrity amidst debilitating experiences of evil or suffering. His lead metaphor of "holding fragments" influences scholars across fields, including within medical ethics. His greatest legacy, however, may be the one remembered by alumni and colleagues: Larry made deep attentiveness to student inquiry his highest professional priority, humanely drawing people into the hardest questions of human existence through patient conversations of texts and readers. In April he was awarded the Jefferson Scholars Foundation highest teaching award.
After teaching at UVA since 1997, Peter W. Ochs retired in December 2021 and was promoted by the Board of Visitors to Professor Emeritus. Peter served as the Edgar M. Bronfman Chair of Modern Judaic Studies for 24 years. A prolific scholar, Peter has written seven books, edited nine more, and published about 200 essays. An expert in the philosophy of American pragmatism and in rabbinic textual reasoning, Peter’s innovative way of integrating those fields, known as "scriptural reasoning," has wide influence in advancing distinctive practices of reading and teaching sacred texts as a basis for inter-religious dialogue. Peter worked with the U.S. Department of State on understanding religion and conflict, designed two unique MA programs for UVA, and was also integral to the founding of Jewish Studies at UVA, and served as its director for three years.
Four New Promotions
Nichole M. Flores was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Flores teaches a range of courses on ethics in health care, migration, media, and democracy. She researches the contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics as applied in public life. She is author of The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (Georgetown, 2021). Flores is a frequent public writer and is a contributing author on the masthead at America: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture.
Shankar Nair was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Nair teaches Islam and Hinduism, and researches Muslim-Hindu interactions in South Asia, with a particular focus on the encounter between Arabic, Sanskrit, and Persian intellectual cultures. Broadly speaking, he is interested in how Muslim and Hindu philosophers, theologians, and mystics interacted with one another, and the ways in which these figures conceptualized and responded to the fact of religious diversity in the world around them. He is the author of Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia (University of California Press, 2020).
John Nemec was promoted to Full Professor. Nemec researches Indian religions and South Asian Studies, and teaches popular courses on Hinduism. He is the author of The Ubiquitous Śiva: Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Tantric Interlocutors, as well as a sequel volume, The Ubiquitous Śiva: Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Philosophical Interlocutors. A third book, tentatively entitled Brahmins and Kings, examines the intersection of religious authority and temporal power in the Sanskrit narrative literatures. This project puts tantric philosophical works in the larger intellectual and cultural context of the Valley of Kashmir of the ninth to twelfth centuries.
Oludamini Ogunnaike was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Ogunnaike researches the philosophical and artistic dimensions of postcolonial, colonial, and pre-colonial Islamic and indigenous religious traditions of West and North Africa, especially Sufism and Ifa. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Penn State University Press, 2020) and Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madīḥ Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020). Ogunnaike teaches "What is Love?" as well as several other classes on African traditions.
CONGRATULATIONS to our Spring 2022 Graduates
BA Degree: Georgia Daniels, John Easton, Elizabethe Fickel, Camaran Gaillard, Benjamin Hill, Brianna Lehman, Samuel Mallow, Samuel Merrell, Anna Myers, Meaghan Nuckols, Maia Shortridge, Garrett Smith, and Lindsey Wilkin.
Master's Degree: Sophie Hargrave (America's Sectarian War: Reactions to Maronite Narratives During the Lebanese Civil War), Martin Pinckney (In the Image: Figures of the Face in Modern Jewish Aesthetics), and Blaine Werner (The Unfolding of Meditation: A Genealogy of "Concentrative vs. Opening-Up Meditation" and the Legacy of Claudio Naranjo's Reformulation of Contemplative Practice for the Transformation of the Self at the Dawn of the New Age).
PhD Conferred: Christopher Hiebert (Authentically Buddhist, Distinctively Nyingma: Gyelse Shenpen Taye (rgyal sras gzhan phan mtha yas, 1800-1855) and the Formation of the Modern Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism), Eric Hilker (Irony of the Other: Christian Ethics Beyond the MacIntyrian Subject), Kevin Rose (Living Green: The Neoliberal Climate of Protestant Environmentalism), Michelle Walsh (Being Buddhist in Contemporary Bhutan: An Ethnographic Study of Embodied Ethics, Contemplative Practices, and the Cultivation of Social Harmony), and Naomi Worth (The Enlightenment of the Body: The Theory and Practice of Winds and Channels Yoga at Namdroling Monastery and Nunnery in South India ).
New Undergraduate Initiatives
Undergraduate Fellow Program
In 2021 we inaugurated an Undergraduate Fellows and Peer Advisors program. The program selects two undergraduates each academic year to lead conversation among majors and minors. This year, the fellows led focus groups that provided student feedback on our programming, organized office hours to help peers with course selection, and visited classes to talk about the major and minor for potential students, among other activities. We were extremely grateful for the tireless efforts of our first pair of Undergraduate Fellows: Fourth Year Meaghan Nuckols, a student of the myriad interactions of religion and law who is off to Duke Law School in the Fall, and Third Year Abena Sekum Appiah-Offori, who is a double major in Religious Studies and Global Development Studies and studies the intersections of race, place and religion among other topics.
In 2021 we inaugurated an Undergraduate Fellows and Peer Advisors program. The program selects two undergraduates each academic year to lead conversation among majors and minors. This year, the fellows led focus groups that provided student feedback on our programming, organized office hours to help peers with course selection, and visited classes to talk about the major and minor for potential students, among other activities. We were extremely grateful for the tireless efforts of our first pair of Undergraduate Fellows: Fourth Year Meaghan Nuckols, a student of the myriad interactions of religion and law who is off to Duke Law School in the Fall, and Third Year Abena Sekum Appiah-Offori, who is a double major in Religious Studies and Global Development Studies and studies the intersections of race, place and religion among other topics.
Alumni Panel
On March 22, 2022, we hosted an event entitled "What can you do with a Religious Studies Major/Minor?" Focused on the fields of law and public health, we were very lucky to have with us Isabelle Foley ('19), a current JD candidate at UVA Law School, and Melina Rapazzini ('16), a certified nurse midwife in San Francisco who has also worked at the USAID Safe Motherhood Project in Zambia. Feedback from students was enthusiastic so we plan to hold a panel each semester, featuring alumni speaking to current students about how Religious Studies informed their life's path after UVA, in their careers or otherwise. If you are an alumn and would be willing to be part of this initiative, please get in touch with Noah Salomon, Director of the Undergraduate Program in Religious Studies, at nsalomon@virginia.edu.
On March 22, 2022, we hosted an event entitled "What can you do with a Religious Studies Major/Minor?" Focused on the fields of law and public health, we were very lucky to have with us Isabelle Foley ('19), a current JD candidate at UVA Law School, and Melina Rapazzini ('16), a certified nurse midwife in San Francisco who has also worked at the USAID Safe Motherhood Project in Zambia. Feedback from students was enthusiastic so we plan to hold a panel each semester, featuring alumni speaking to current students about how Religious Studies informed their life's path after UVA, in their careers or otherwise. If you are an alumn and would be willing to be part of this initiative, please get in touch with Noah Salomon, Director of the Undergraduate Program in Religious Studies, at nsalomon@virginia.edu.
Distinguished Majors Showcase
We have begun an annual research showcase feature for our undergraduate distinguished major theses. In April the following students presented:
Meaghan Nuckols presented a thesis entitled, "The Influence of Conservative Christian Values on the Supreme Court of the United States regarding Physician-Aid-in-Dying." She contended that religious thought significantly impacts the Court and argued that the Court needs to be more transparent about this relationship.
Will Treene presented a project entitled "Evangelicalism and Vaccine Resistance: How History and Theology may Play a Unique Role." His research sought to understand the underpinnings of the white evangelical worldview that have contributed to the demographic’s resistance to COVID-19 vaccines, with an emphasis on treating vaccination as a 'personal choice' and mistrusting scientific authority.
Nicole Ralsgard presented a thesis entitled, "Have the Money Influxes towards Angkor Wat affected Cambodian Buddhist Monastic Life and Educational Systems?" In it, she explored how openness to the west, through increased tourism, has affected Buddhism in Cambodia, with particular attention to interactions between Buddhist monks and western volunteers.
Lindsey Wilkin presented a thesis entitled, "Queer and/or Catholic: Seeking Mediation Between Competing Identities." The thesis took a social scientific approach to study how individuals who are both queer and Catholic can manage Vatican-promulgated doctrine that, she argues, condemns them.
New Graduate Initiatives
Bridge to the Doctorate Fellows
The Religious Studies graduate program welcomed its first cohort of Bridge to the Doctorate Fellows: Jillian Gatewood, Danielle Sanchez, and Shy’Anne Turner. This relatively new program supports students from groups that are underrepresented in their disciplines and provides two years of full funding and training, in addition to focused mentoring. We look forward to welcoming our next cohort of two additional Bridge students in Fall 2022.
The Religious Studies graduate program welcomed its first cohort of Bridge to the Doctorate Fellows: Jillian Gatewood, Danielle Sanchez, and Shy’Anne Turner. This relatively new program supports students from groups that are underrepresented in their disciplines and provides two years of full funding and training, in addition to focused mentoring. We look forward to welcoming our next cohort of two additional Bridge students in Fall 2022.
PhD+ Internships
This past year the Religious Studies Graduate Program partnered with the University’s PhD+ Internship program to place nine students in internships that provided them with professional training and the opportunity to explore career paths in which their academic training would be useful. Students worked with academic organizations, non-profit groups, and think tanks, such as the American Academy of Religion, the American Institute for Indian Studies, the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy, the Alliance for Health Policy, and UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center, as well as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the AAR’s Reading Religion.
This past year the Religious Studies Graduate Program partnered with the University’s PhD+ Internship program to place nine students in internships that provided them with professional training and the opportunity to explore career paths in which their academic training would be useful. Students worked with academic organizations, non-profit groups, and think tanks, such as the American Academy of Religion, the American Institute for Indian Studies, the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy, the Alliance for Health Policy, and UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center, as well as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the AAR’s Reading Religion.
Graduate Teaching Awards
Around a thousand graduate students serve as TAs at the University of Virginia, and only 37 were nominated this year for All-University Graduate Teaching Awards. Three of them—Rebekah Latour, Elizabeth Narvaez, and Ilma Qureshi—were from Religious Studies! Moreover, was one of only 12 TAs awarded the All-University Teaching Award!
Around a thousand graduate students serve as TAs at the University of Virginia, and only 37 were nominated this year for All-University Graduate Teaching Awards. Three of them—Rebekah Latour, Elizabeth Narvaez, and Ilma Qureshi—were from Religious Studies! Moreover, was one of only 12 TAs awarded the All-University Teaching Award!
Faculty Research
Our faculty work in dozens of research fields with more than twenty primary research languages. In the past year they won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Luce Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. Their work advances world-class knowledge through articles, lectures, documentaries, podcasts, digital humanities scholarship, art exhibits, and other media collectively too numerous to list. The following book publications indicate some of the range and productivity of faculty research.
Michael Allen, The Ocean of Inquiry: Niscaldas and the Premodern Origins of Modern Hinduism (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Nichole Flores, The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021).
Martien Halvorson-Taylor, Writing the Bible (The Great Courses & Audible), released December 7, 2021.
Kevin Hart, L'image vulnérable: Sur l'image de Dieu chez S. Augustin (Presses Universitaires de France, 2021).
Kevin Hart, Contemplation and Kingdom: Aquinas Reads Richard of St. Victor (St. Augustine's Press, 2021).
Sonam Kachru, Mind and World in Indian Buddhism (Columbia University Press, 2021).
John Nemec The Ubiquitous Siva (vol. II): Somananda's Sivadrsti and His Philosophical Interlocutors (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Janet Spittler, The Apostles Peter, Paul, John, Thomas and Philip with their Companions in Late Antiquity. Edited by Jan Bremmer, Tobias Nicklas, and Janet Spittler. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 17. 2021.
Finally, we celebrate Ashon Crawley’s Lonely Letters, which won two book awards last year, the 2021 Alan Bray Book Prize from the American Studies Association and the Lambda Literary Award.
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