This College Forum focuses on the ideals that have shaped democracies around the world and the realities of injustices that have accompanied them. With a particular focus on the intersections of race, religion, and democracy, this Forum draws on the resources of multiple disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives to explore the ways that ideals have been conceived, elaborated, and espoused in democratic contexts, on the one hand, and distorted, misused, and abandoned by the very same individuals, communities, and institutions proclaiming them, on the other. Some of the questions we will explore are: What happens when nations and communities are founded on ideals that they fail to embody? How do we make sense of ideals that are used to justify extreme violence? How have religions contributed to both upholding and infringing upon human rights? In short, this Forum gives students the opportunity to explore the ways ideals are formed and forsaken, and injustices justified and redressed, in different historical and cultural contexts, including their own.
Instructors
Jennifer Geddes, Department of Religious Studies
I teach courses on evil, suffering, and the Holocaust and on ethics, literature, and religion, among other things, in the Department of Religious Studies. For example, I regularly teach RELG 3255: Ethics, Literature, and Religion with Professor Larry Bouchard and RELJ 3052: Responses to the Holocaust. I have also taught various courses outside of Religious Studies, including College Advising Seminars on evil and on favorite things—note that those are two different courses—and a Pavilion Seminar on what matters and how. My work has generally been concerned with questions about what matters in human life and how to respond to human suffering and its multiple causes; with the ethics of how we interpret the world around us, including, and perhaps especially, each other; and with the resources that different kinds of thinking and writing—for example, literature or philosophy or testimony or history or theology—offer us as we grapple with such topics.
Sonam Kachru, Departmen of Religious Studies
My research interests lie in the history of philosophy, with special attention to the history of Buddhist philosophy in South Asia. Topics of particular interest to me include the philosophy of mind, action and philosophical anthropology. I believe the history of Buddhist philosophy in South Asia is best pursued keeping in view the long conversations of Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophers in South Asia, and also the importance of narrative thought for the history of ideas. I am currently working on two monographs. The first, entitled More And Less Than Human: Towards a Natural History of ‘Other Minds’ in Indian Buddhism, offers a new interpretation of the Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. The second, Practices of Self in Antiquity: Between Athens and Pataliputra, offers a new account of the vocabularies and practices that, so I argue, constituted a connected climate of philosophical therapy in antiquity.
Navigating the Forum
In the first semester (fall 2019) you will enroll in FORU 1500 (Ideals and Injustices). This course will introduce students to works that explore the philosophical, ethical, and religious underpinnings of ideals, and to works in psychology, sociology, and political theory that explore how ideals are made visible and desirable, and then sustained, in institutions, communities, and nations. Outside of the introductory course and capstone, you will partake in a speaker series that will be held in conjunction with this Forum, featuring one speaker invited from outside the University in each of its four semesters.
In the final semester (Spring 2021) you will enroll in FORU 2500 Capstone Course
Coursework
Competency Requirements
- First Writing Requirement (3 credits)
- Second Writing Requirement (3 credits)
- World Langugages (0-14 credits)
Core Required Courses (8 credits)
- FORU 1500: Ideals and Injustices (Fall ’19)
- FORU 1510 (Spring ’20)
- FORU 1510 (Fall ’20)
- FORU 2500: Capstone Seminar, (Spring ’21)
Category 1: Take three 3-or-more credit classes from two different departments
- ARTH 1500 Art and Experience
- ARTH 1505 Art and the Modern World
- ARTH 2471 Art Since 1945
- ENGL 2420 Literature of Slavery & Freedom
- ENGL 2500 Intro to Literary Studies
- ENGL 2507 Medieval Shakespeare
- ENGL 2508 Studies in Fiction
- ENGL 2560 Contemporary Literature
- ENGL 2572 Black Writers in America
- ENGL 2590 Studies in Global Literature
- ENGL 2592 Women in Literature
- ENGL 2599 Animals and Literature
- ENGL 2599 Beauty and Monstrosity
- ENGL 2599 Literature and Medicine
- ENGL 2599 Literature & the Natural World
- ENGL 2599 Landscapes of Black Education
- ENGL 2599 World Wars in European Lit
- ENGL 3482 The Fiction of Empire
- ENGL 3560 Being Human: Race, Tech., & the Arts
- FRTR 2580 Women in Islam, The Right to History
- FRTR 2580 Blackness in French
- GETR 3390 Nazi Germany
- GETR 3505 Hitler
- GETR 3462 Neighbors and Enemies
- GETR 3470 Literature of the Holocaust
- GETR 3559 Historical-Political Memory
- GETR 3590 Right-Wing Populism & Far Right
- GETR 3692 The Holocaust
- GETR 3695 The Holocaust and the Law
- Any history class at the 1000 or 2000 level
- HIEU 3152 Brit. Emp. & Making of Mod. World
- HIEU 3390 Nazi Germany
- HIEU 3462 Neighbors and Enemies in Germany
- HIEU 3505 Hitler
- HIEU 3692 The Holocaust
- HILA 2002 Modern Latin America, 1824 to Present
- HISA 3003 Twentieth-Century South Asia
- HIST 3281 Genocide
- HIST 3452 The Second World War
- HIST 3559 Conquest of India
- HIUS 3011 Colonial Period in American History
- HIUS 3051 The Age of Jefferson and Jackson
- HIUS 3072 The Civil War and Reconstruction
- HIUS 3171 US Since 1945: People, Politics, Power
- HIUS 3471 History of American Labor
- HIUS 3559 Race, Gender, & Empire
- HIUS 3559 Sexual Politics in the 20th c. United States
- HIUS 3651 African American History Since 1865
- HIUS 3652 Afro-American history since 1865
- HIUS 3654 Black Fire
- HIUS 3671 African American Freedom Movement
- HIUS 3853 From Redlined to Subprime
- MDST 3402 War and the Media
- MESA 1000 From Genghis Khan to Stalin
- MESA 2300 Crossing Borders
- MESA 2700 Revolutions in the Islamic World
- MEST 2470 Reflections of Exile
- PHIL 1000 Intro to Philosophy
- PHIL 1710 Human Nature
- PHIL 1730 Intro to Moral and Political Philosophy
- PHIL 1740 Issues of Life and Death
- PHIL 1750 The Meaning of Life
- PHIL 2060 Philosophical Problems in Law
- PHIL 2760 Classics of Political Philosophy
- PHIL 2110 History of Philosophy
- PHIL 2500 any
- PHIL 2650 Free Will and Responsibility
- PHIL 2760 Classics of Political Philosophy
- PHIL 3500 Political Philosophy
- PHIL 3500 Animals and Ethics
- PHIL 3710 Ethics
- PHIL 3800 Feminist Philosophy
- RELA 2750 African Religions
- RELA 2850 Afro-Creole Religions in the Americas
- RELA 3000 Women and Religion in Africa
- RELA 3073 Religion and Society in Nigeria
- RELA 3351 African Diaspora Religions
- RELA 3559 Religion and Inequality in Africa
- RELA 3890 Christianity in Africa
- RELA 3900 Islam in Africa
- RELB 1559 Buddhist Ethics
- RELB 2054 Tibetan Buddhism
- RELB 2100 Buddhism
- RELB 2135 Chinese Buddhism
- RELB 2715 Chinese Religions
- RELB 3150 Gender and Buddhism
- RELC 1210 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
- RELC 1220 New Testament & Early Christianity
- RELC 2050 Rise of Christianity
- RELC 2155 Whiteness and Religion
- RELC 2245 Global Christianity
- RELC 2360 Elements of Christian Thought
- RELC 3077 Theologies of Liberation
- RELC 3222 From Jefferson to King
- RELC 3447 History of Christian Ethics
- RELC 3465 Am. Religion, Social Reform, & Democracy
- RELG 1010 Intro. to Western Religions Traditions
- RELG 1040 Intro. To Eastern Religious Traditions
- RELG 1400 Art and Sci of Human Flourishing
- RELG 1500 Religion, Race, and Democracy
- RELG 1559 Religion Matters
- RELG 2155 Whiteness and Religion
- RELG 2190 Religion and Modern Fiction
- RELG 2210 Religion, Ethics, & Global Environment
- RELG 2559 Religious Bodies
- RELG 2559 Religion, Human Right & Activism
- RELG 2559 Ballots, Bullets, Bibles
- RELG 2650 Theological Bioethics
- RELG 2820 Jerusalem
- RELG 2300 Religious Ethics and Moral Problems
- RELG 2630 Business, Ethics and Society
- RELG 2660 Spiritual but Not Religious
- RELG 3200 Martin, Malcolm, and American
- RELG 3225 The Civil Rights Movement
- RELG 3255 Ethics, Literature, and Religion
- RELG 3405 Intro to Black & Womanist Religious Thought
- RELG 3559 Intro to Black Philosophy & Religion
- RELG 3605 Religion, Violence and Strategy
- RELH 2090 Hinduism
- RELH 3105 Hinduism and Ecology
- RELH 3440 Religion and Violence in Modern India
- RELI 2024 Jewish-Muslim Relations
- RELI 2080 Global Islam
- RELI 2085 Modern Islam
- RELJ 1210 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
- RELJ 2024 Jewish-Muslim Relations
- RELJ 2030 Judaism, Roots and Rebellion
- RELJ 3052 Responses to the Holocaust
- RELJ 3170 Modern Jewish Thought
- RELJ 3390 Jewish Feminism
- RUTR 3340 Books Behind Bars
- RUTR 2740 Tolstoy in Translation
- SAST 1300 Under the Colonized Gaze
- SAST 1600 India in Global Perspective
- SLTR 3500 The Ukraine Crisis
Category 2: Take three 3-or-more credit classes from two different departments
- AAS 1010 Intro to African-American and African Studies
- AAS 1020 Intro to African-American and African Studies
- AAS 2224 Black Femininities and Masculinities
- AAS 2559 Music, Politics Soc. Movements
- AAS 2559 Reckoning with Slavery
- AAS 2559 The Souls of Black Folk
- AAS 3000 Women and Religion in Africa
- AAS 3200 Martin, Malcolm and America
- AAS 3300 Social Science Perspectives on African American and African Studies
- AAS 3500 Black Women & Mass Incarceration
- AAS 3500 Race, Med. & Incarceration in Am.
- AAS 3500 Black Environmental Thought
- AAS 3500 Race, Class, Pol., & the Environ.
- AAS 3500 Working Barefoot in the Snow
- AAS 3810 Race, Culture and Inequality
- AMST 1050 Slavery and Its Legacies
- AMST 1559 The Aftermath of Slavery at UVA and in Virginia
- AMST 3221 Hands-On Public History: Slavery and Reconstruction
- AMST 3641 Native America
- ANTH 1010 Introduction to Anthropology
- ANTH 2040 Methods in the Study of Culture
- ANTH 2240 Progress
- ANTH 2250 Nationalism, Racism, Multiculturalism
- ANTH 2280 Medical Anthropology
- ANTH 2285 Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism
- ANTH 2375 Disaster
- ANTH 2400 Language and Culture
- ANTH 2430 Languages of the World
- ANTH 2440 Language and Cinema
- ANTH 2541 Tech, Language, and Society
- ANTH 2559 Intro Native American Studies
- ANTH 2621 Culture, Gender, Violence
- ANTH 3220 Economic Anthropology
- ECON 2010 Principles of Economics: Microeconomics
- ECON 2020 Principles of Economics: Macroeconomics
- ECON 2060 American Economic History
- GSSJ 3559 Global Orders in Security, Access to Justice and Human Rights
- GSVS 2210 Religion, Ethics, & Global Environments
- MESA 1000 From Genghis Khan to Stalin: Invasions and Empires of Central Asia
- MESA 3110 Sustainable Environments Middle East and South Asia
- MESA 3559 Islam, Science, and the Environment
- PLAP 1010 Intro to Am Politics
- PLAP 2250 American Political Tradition
- PLAP 3140 Mass Media and American Politics
- PLAP 3820 Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
- PLCP 1010 Intro to Comparative Politics
- PLCP 2420 Politics of Modernity
- PLCP 3012 Politics of Developing Areas
- PLCP 3120 Pol. & Pol. Econ. of Welfare State
- PLCP 3410 Politics of the Middle East & N. Africa
- PLCP 3500 Environmental Politics in China
- PLCP 3500 Politics of the Holocaust
- PLCP 3500 Grassroots Politics
- PLCP 3630 Politics of India and Pakistan
- PLIR 2020 Foreign Policies of the Powers
- PLIR 3060 Military Force in International Rel.
- PLIR 3310 Ethics and Human Rights in World Politics
- PLPT 1010 Introduction to Political Theory
- PLPT 3020 Modern Political Thought
- PLPT 3030 Contemporary Political Thought
- PLPT 3200 African-American Political Thought
- PSYC 2150 Intro to Cognitive Science
- PSYC 2600 Introduction to Social Psychology
- PSYC 2700 Introduction to Child Psychology
- SOC 1010 Intro to Sociology
- SOC 2052 Sociology of the Family
- SOC 2220 Social Problems
- SOC 2230 Criminology
- SOC 2320 Gender and Society
- SOC 2442 Systems of Inequality
- SOC 2595 Immigration & Society
- SOC 2900 Economy and Society
- SOC 3020 Introduction to Social Theory
- SOC 3410 Race and Ethnic Relations
- SATR 3000 Women Writing in India & Pakistan
- WGS 2100 Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies
- WGS 2500 Human Sexuality
- WGS 2600 Human Sexualities
- WGS 2894 Gender, Body Image and Social Activism
- WGS 2897 Gender Violence and Social Justice
- WGS 3100 Women and Freedom of Movement
- WGS 3105 Issues in LGBTQ Studies
- WGS 3110 Queer American history
- WGS 3140 Border Crossings
- WGS 3800 Queer Theory
- WGS 3810 Feminist Theory
Category 3: Take two 3-or-more credit classes from two different departments (only one MATH or one STAT class may apply to this requirement)
- ASTR 1210 Introduction to the Sky and Solar System
- ASTR 1250 Alien Worlds
- ASTR 1270 Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe
- ASTR 1280 The Origins of Almost Everything
- ASTR 2110 Introduction to Astrophysics I
- ASTR 2120 Introduction to Astrophysics II
- ASTR 3420 Life Beyond the Earth
- ASTR 3460 Development of Modern Astronomy
- ASTR 3470 Science and Controversy in Astronomy
- ASTR 3480 Introduction to Cosmology
- BIOL 1040 The DNA Revolution
- BIOL 1050 Genetics for an Informed Citizen
- BIOL 1210 Human Biology and Disease
- BIOL 2100 Introduction to Biology
- BIOL 2200 Introduction to Biology
- BIOL 3010 Genetics and Molecular Biology
- CHEM 1410 Introductory College Chemistry I
- CHEM 1420 Introductory College Chemistry II
- EVSC 1010 Introduction to Environmental Sciences
- EVSC 1020 Practical Concepts in Environmental Studies
- EVSC 1040 Virginia’s Environments
- EVSC 1080 Resources and the Environment
- EVSC 1200 Elements of Ecology
- EVSC 1300 Earth’s Weather and Climate
- EVSC 1450 An Inconvenient Truce: Climate Change, You, and CO2
- EVSC 1600 Water on Earth
- EVSC 2010 Materials That Shape Civilizations
- EVSC 2030 Politics, Science and Values
- EVSC 2050 Introduction to Oceanography
- EVSC 2070 Earth Systems Technology & Management EVSC 2200 Plants, People, and Culture
- EVSC 2220 Conservation Ecology
- EVSC 2900 Beaches, Coasts, and Rivers
- MATH - any class
- PHYS 1090 Galileo and Einstein
- PHYS 2010 Principles of Physics
- PHYS 2020 Principles of Physics II
- PSYC 2200 Survey of the Neural Basis of Behavior
- STAT - any class