Instructor:
Thomas Jefferson famously founded the University of Virginia as a university with “no professor of divinity,” the first university in the USA not to include religious education and the training of ministers as part of its curriculum. Today, the University of Virginia is home to the largest Religious Studies department in the country. In this course, we’ll take an historical look at the presence and absence of both the practice of and study of religion, in its many forms, on UVa’s Grounds, from the beginnings to the present day. We will use this historical exploration to raise ethical questions about religion(s) on Grounds. What roles should religion play at a university that understands itself to be both “great and good”?