Religion in Culture Lunch Series

On Thursday, March 9, 2006, Prof. Kurtis Schaeffer was the guest at another of the Department's Religion in Culture lunch discussion events. Formerly of the University of Alabama (where he worked as an Assistant Professor from 2000-2005), as of the Fall 2005 semester Prof. Schaeffer has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia--a nationally-known campus originally designed by Thomas Jefferson.

The day before his lunch discussion, Prof. Schaeffer had delivered the third Religion in Culture lecture of the Spring 2006 semester. Learn more about his lecture here.

The Rotunda, on the campus of the University of Virginia. Click the image to visit their campus's live "Rotunda cam."

The lunch provided REL majors with an opportunity to read and discuss the concluding chapter to Imagining Tibet, an edited collection of essays. Some of the students in attendance had already taken REL 324, a course established by Prof. Schaeffer, and found this to be an opportunity to examine in further detail contemporary images and conceptions of Tibet that circulate both in popular culture and scholarship.

Tour the UVA campus

Learn more about Thomas Jefferson's architecture

Visit UVA's Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library

Thanks to Betty Dickey and Donna Martin for helping to organize this lunch. Thanks also to the photographic magic of Melanie "Shutterbug" Williams.

Prof. Kurtis Schaeffer returns to campus, along with his shorts and hiking boots! This marked his first time in our newly refurbished seminar room. Learn more about his final day in Tuscaloosa.

Prof. Steve Jacobs (left) looking to see if he can swap any lunch items with REL majors Justin Nelson and Jennifer Alfano. Jennifer, along with Sarah Luken (picture below) are both recipients of this year's Silverstein Fellowship, which will be awarded at our Honors Day lunch (April 7, 2006)--see what happened last year.

REL students Nicole Vest (far left) and Sarah Luken (who is apparently a member of the staff) listening to Prof. Schaeffer as Prof. Maha Marouan tries to see which brand of soda Jennifer Goodman is selecting.

Prof. McCutcheon (foreground) wonders to himself, "Could they all be laughing at my increasingly apparent bald spot?"