A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Craig Vasey
Craig Vasey, Chair of the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion and Professor of Philosophy, will give the keynote address, “Civil Rights and Religious Opinions” at the Knights of Columbus annual Religious Freedom Day celebration on Sunday, Jan. 14 at the Religious Freedom Monument on Washington Avenue.
Dan Hirshberg, assistant professor of religion, presented new research at the International Association for Tibetan Studies conference, held at the University of Bergen (Norway), June 19–25, 2016. His paper traced the introduction and evolution of the many names of Padmasambhava, an eighth-century tantrika credited with establishing Buddhism in Tibet, which became signposts in the retelling of his biography as well as the foci of countless ritual and devotional liturgies.
Craig Vasey and Linda Carroll wrote an article titled “How Do We Evaluate Teaching?” in the May-June issue of Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors.
Vasey is professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Classics, Philosophy and Religion. He is a former member of the AAUP’s national council and current chair of the Committee on Teaching, Research and Publication. Linda Carroll is professor of Italian at Tulane University and a member of the AAUP’s Executive Committee.
https://www.aaup.org/article/how-do-we-evaluate-teaching#.V1hIkrerRD8
The presentation will take place in at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium and is open to the public free of charge.
A Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the author of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies; the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule; and co-editor of a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty. He recently published Religious Liberty, Volume I: Overviews and History and Volume II: The Free Exercise Clause, the first half of a four-volume collection of his many writings on religious liberty.
The UMW Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion has sponsored the annual Jefferson Lecture on Religious Freedom since 2002, bringing scholars and public figures to the stage to enlighten students and visitors about religious freedom and the significance of Jefferson’s impact. Jefferson’s statute was enacted by the Virginia General Assembly on January 16, 1786 and established the legal right to complete freedom of worship in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The statute also was a significant step toward the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The presentation also will recognize the winners of a middle school essay contest on the theme of religious freedom, co-sponsored by the UMW Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion and the Fredericksburg Coalition of Reason. Each winner will receive a certificate on-stage before the lecture.
For more information about the event, please contact Craig Vasey, professor and chair of the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at (540) 654-1342.
“Authenticity and Myth-Making” Panelists
From left to right: Dan Hirshberg, Wulstan Fletcher (Tsadra Foundation), Professor Karma Lekshe Tsomo (University of San Diego), Professor Don Lopez (University of Michigan), and Dr. Jules Levinson (UMA Institute).
Dan Hirshberg, Assistant Professor of Religion, moderated the closing discussion of Tsadra Foundation’s Transmission & Translation conference. Since Tibetans began streaming out of Tibet following the Communist Invasions of the 1950’s, this marks the first time that the world’s foremost scholars and translators of Tibetan language materials, both from academia and Buddhist practice communities, both Tibetans and not, were convened to discuss an array of issues concerning the translation of Tibetan into Western languages. His panel on “Authenticity and Myth-Making” was especially provocative in confronting the problem of discrimination in Buddhist scripture, especially with regard to gender, and the question as to whether translators should allow such content to persist in translation, thereby sanctifying discrimination in authoritative sources for contemporary audiences who repudiate such views.
In addition to serving as a lecturer for the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition, Cheung is the editorial director of The Nutrition Source, a nutrition website for health professionals, media and consumers; co-editorial director of the Obesity Prevention Source, a website providing science-based information for policy changes at the community level, and the Asian Diabetes Prevention Initiative, a website providing research-based evidence for policy makers and the public with the goal of reversing the spread of Type 2 diabetes in Asia. Cheung will be available after her talk to sign copies of her book.
The weeklong awareness event also includes lectures, workshops and a film screening. For more information and a listing of all events, please visit meditation.umwblogs.org/umw-mindfulness-week-2014/. Most events are free and open to the public.Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of Philosophy and Religion and Co-Director of the Leidecker Center for Asian Studies, presented a paper entitled “The Pearls and Perils of Teaching the Prophetic Message Virtually” at the International Conference on Islamic E-Learning.
Sponsored jointly by The Islamic College of London and Middlesex University, the conference was held in London on May 27 and 28.
Donna Dollings ’80 and Mark Keith ’87, who majored in Latin at the University of Mary Washington, were both recipients of prestigious awards for their teaching last year.
Donna Dollings ’80 (right) holds her award.
Dollings received the Angela Lloyd Book Award from the Classical Association of Virginia. The
Mark Keith ’87 won two awards for his teaching.
James River High School teacher won the award for dedication to her students. Here is what her nominator said about her, “Her genuine compassion is obvious and she quickly puts all at ease. I have known her to tutor with great success students that others have given up on.”
Keith received the 2013 Foreign Language Association of Virginia David Cox Award for Excellence in Foreign Language Teaching for his demonstrated excellence in foreign language instruction and the 2014 Jane Harriman Hall Award for Outstanding Service to the Classical Association of Virginia.
Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of philosophy and religion, published eight articles in “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam.” The articles are on Islamic philosophers and one school of philosophy: Ishrāqiyyūn (Illuminationists). These medieval philosophers wrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle and introduced new ideas of their own to create a rapprochement between eastern and western philosophical thought. Here is the list of articles and their locations:
1. Mīr Dāmād, pages 35-38
2. Suhrawardī, pages 294-298
3. ʻUmar Khayyām, pages 444-448
4. Afḍal al-Dīn Kāshānī, pages 436-438
5. Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, pages 250-253
6. Sabziwārī, pages 213-215
7. Nāṣir Khusraw, pages 71-74
8. Ishrāqiyyūn (Illuminationists), pages 409-415
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