Funding Successes for Randall Stephens

Randall Stephens, Reader in History and American Studies, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship to take part in a seminar on “Problems in the Study of Religion.”  The grant amounts to $2,700/£1,910 and is for a three-week session.

UVA's Rotunda building, designed by Thomas Jefferson

This prestigious NEH University of Virginia seminar brings together college and university faculty as well as advanced graduate students to study, research, and write on the subject.

The seminar will be lead by UVA professors Charles Mathewes, an ethicist, and Kurtis Schaeffer, who works on Buddhism and Tibetan religions.  The programme's website further elaborates:

Problems in the Study of Religion brings together college and university faculty as well as advanced graduate students from the many disciplines that have a stake in understanding religion, for the purpose of coming to terms with the manifold changes in the study of religion that have occurred over the past decade.

Running for three weeks, the Institute will introduce scholars, within religious studies and without, to the enormously productive re-thinking of the idea of “religion” that has happened in recent years, in order to assist those interested in developing a richer and more nuanced understanding of the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and pitfalls, that come with using the category of “religion” to understand highly diverse manifestations of human practice and belief within the United States and around the world today.

The primary activities of the Institute will be close reading and discussion of important contemporary scholarship on the history, current hot spots, and teaching about religion, punctuated with lectures by specialists from select fields in the study of religion. Institute participants will also engage in independent research projects, making use of the University of Virginia’s world-class research facilities and staff.

Congratulations to Randall!