Virginia Humanities

Immigration Stories

Bol Gai Deng was born in a Sudanese village so remote that, he says, no one there knew they were living in a place called Sudan. Life revolved around tending cattle and fishing the nearby rivers. He remembers watching the stars at night and wondering about the world. War came. Bol was kidnapped when he […]

Embrace Richmond

Grantee Spotlight

Using a process known as “Transformative Language Arts” local youth gather oral histories and bring them to life using creative writing, storytelling, songwriting, and dramatic performance.

CFA Institute Supports Diverse Voices and Inclusivity

2018 Virginia Festival of the Book

The Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of Virginia Humanities, serves a unique role in Central Virginia, bringing to Charlottesville hundreds of speakers each year to participate in programs that are rooted in contemporary published works and seek to foster active engagement with contemporary issues, for all ages and reading levels. The Festival has […]

Announcing New Project Director for Food & Community in Virginia

Food and Community in Virginia, a project of the Virginia Folklife Program at Virginia Humanities, welcomes Lilia Fuquen as project director for this year-long initiative. The goal of Food and Community in Virginia is to bring people across the Commonwealth together to document, celebrate, and share traditional, contemporary, and emerging foodways. Through diverse food traditions, […]

Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection

The Taubman Museum of Art will present “Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection”, featuring more than one hundred works from various media highlighting the global migration of peoples across the world. The exhibiting artists create work that investigates the universal conversation of migration, history, race, and representation in art being made today. […]

New Women’s Monument

Read about the twelve women honored in new women’s monument

Earlier this month ground was broken in Richmond’s Capitol Square for a new monument honoring the contributions of women in Virginia. The monument will feature bronze statues of twelve women, nine of whom you can read about in VFH’s Encyclopedia Virginia. Anne Burras Laydon (ca. 1594–ca. 1636) and her mistress were the first two English […]

Changing the Narrative

Announcing Major Funding for a Multi-Program Initiative to Address Racism and Racial Bias in Virginia

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) at the University of Virginia has been awarded $899,435 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for “Changing the Narrative.” The two-year project aims to broaden and reframe narratives of Virginia’s past by engaging local communities and youth in addressing the present-day challenges of racism and bias. It is part of […]

Ruby Sales and the Future of Civil Rights Activism

Civil rights leader Ruby Sales visited Charlottesville on November 29th to participate in a public conversation on social justice and spirituality hosted by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH).

Meet VFH Board Member Steve Herman

Steve Herman was born and raised in Suffolk, VA. He has had a life-long career working in the energy field and is currently a Managing Director at Energy Capital Partners. Recently, Lenneal sat down with Elliot Majerczyk in our radio studio to talk about how the humanities help us better understand each other’s cultural heritage.