Last summer’s infamous Charlottesville rally will be the subject of a roundtable discussion in UMW’s Monroe Hall, Room 116, on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m.
The session, “Religious Freedom in the Streets: Remembering Charlottesville,” is part of the Religious Freedom in a Fractured America conference, hosted by Mary Washington’s Department of Classics, Philosophy and Religion. The two-day event, held Thursday and Friday, also will include student essay presentations and panel discussions led by thought leaders from across the region and beyond.
“In the aftermath of the last Presidential election and the ensuing political turmoil, religious minorities are alarmed by the rate of attacks on religious liberties in America,” said UMW Professor Mehdi Aminrazavi. “We like to remind the powers that be of the American tradition of tolerance.”
Aminrazavi will moderate the roundtable event, featuring celebrated religious figures. Panel discussions, co-organized by UMW Professor Jennifer Barry, will revolve around the topics of religious violence, anti-intellectualism and religious freedom, and persecution complex. UMW’s Aminrazavi and Mary Beth Mathews; Women in Higher Education editor Kelly J. Baker; the University of Iowa’s Sarah Bond; Earlham College’s Emily Filler; Rutgers’ Diane Fruchtman; the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute’s Benjamin Marcus; Lehigh University’s Monica Miller; and George Mason University’s Matthew Scherer will lead the sessions.
Daytime conference activities – including Friday’s 1:30 p.m. student presentation of winning essays based on religious freedom and how it has changed since the last presidential election – will take place in the University Center’s Colonnade Room.
UMW student interns Es Hethcox, John Guidon and Julia Mitchell helped organize the conference, also sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies, Political Science and International Affairs, and History and American Studies departments; Leidecker Center for Asian Studies; and University of Virginia’s Center for the Study of Religion.
A detailed schedule for the event, which is free and open to the public, is available online.
