The Engagements Experience

This event is the third in an ongoing series from the Karsh Institute of Democracy featuring conversations with leaders on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle. 

In this post-election analysis, panelists discuss the complex interplay of race, gender, and age demographics as they affected the outcome. Discussants will also consider obstacles to a level playing field with respect to voting rights.

This event is part of UVA's 2025 Community Martin Luther King Celebration and is co-sponsored by UVA Lifetime Learning in the Office of Engagement and the Office of African American Affairs at UVA.

This unique, interactive workshop invites attendees to experience the impact of zines first-hand. Led by Jess Walters, a Deaf-Queer multiply neurodivergent Disability Justice advocate who turned their lived experiences recovering from dialysis and kidney transplant into a lifelong pursuit to better understand the intersections of art and health, this workshop explores how the medium of zines can be used to form community connections and zine-making as a therapeutic activity for introspection and creative expression.

Jess will share resources, provide examples of zines from a variety of perspectives, and lead the audience in a collaborative zine-making activity culminating in an opportunity to exchange zines and discuss their experiences.

Thomas Friedman is a New York Times foreign affairs columnist and bestselling author of The World is Flat and Salam Fayyad is an economist and former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.

From the publisher's page: "Historian Christa Dierksheide examines the lives and experiences of a rising generation of Jefferson’s descendants, Black and white, illuminating how they redefined equality and independence in a world that was half a century removed from the American Revolution. The Hemingses and Randolphs moved beyond Jefferson and his eighteenth-century world, leveraging their own ideas and experiences in nineteenth-century Britain, China, Cuba, Mexico, and the American West to claim independence and equal rights in an imperial and slaveholding republic."

Lecture by John McGreevy, Charles & Jill Fischer Provost, University of Notre Dame

Response form Matthew Hedstrom, Associate Professor, Religious Studies and American Studies

In celebration of the Miller Center’s 50th anniversary in 2025, a series of special public events highlights the Center’s contributions to Presidential Oral History and the study of the U.S. presidency, featuring every presidency for which the Center has conducted an oral history project.

LINÜ‘s mission is to embrace the many possibilities that arise with new technology and to expand the possibilities of music-making, through creative collaborations with other artists and other artistic mediums.

The audience will be transported into vivid sonic worlds: experiencing the vibrant flavors of the Black Sea region, drifting to sleep with a grandmother’s lullaby, catching fireflies on a summer night, and falling in love with the lush, evocative sounds of the viola.

Don’t miss this enchanting afternoon of music that celebrates the beauty of shared history, culture, and storytelling through sound.

Prizewinner of international piano competitions and a Bösendorfer Concert Artist, Ivo Kaltchev has enjoyed a successful performing career as recitalist, soloist with orchestras, chamber musician and recording artist.