IATH NEWS

JUEL Project part of UVa Dialogues on Race and Inequity

September 21, 2017

The University of Virginia's Dialogues on Race and Inequity, originally planned to be held on August 12 but rescheduled for Saturday, September 23, will include an important look at both the use of enslaved individuals in the construction and daily life of the University's Academical Village. Project staf of Jefferson’s University—Early Life Project, 1819-1870 (JUEL) will be sharing renders and animations from the 3D component of the project at noon in the lobby of Alderman Library.

JUEL, a joint collaboration with IATH and UVa faculty, staff, and students, uses primary records from the University's archives to study the early history of UVa. The JUEL Visualization project is intended to create a digital reconstruction of the Academical Village circa 1827, after construction was completed and before major changes were made to Jefferson’s original design. Slavery played an important role in these early years: the University could not have been built or sustained without the labor of enslaved individuals, whose presence has nearly been erased over the decades.

Kirt von Daacke, Associate Professor of History at UVA and co-founder and head of JUEL, will also speak on "Pro-Slavery Thought and Education at UVa" at 4pm in Alderman Library's Scholars' Lab.

The Dialogues event will be facilitated by faculty, staff, and students, and will cover subjects such as constitutional rights and citizenship; community dynamics and polarization; local history; and a variety of other topics that challenge or undergird a civil democracy. The discussions will be held in Alderman and adjacent libraries and are free and open to the public. A list of speakers and their sessions, with maps and information on parking, can be found at the event web site. Highlights will include University Librarian and Dean of Libraries John Unsworth and Dean of Students Allen Groves co-leading a discussion on recent books on free speech, as well as screenings throughout the day of recent documentaries on race and racism and the legacy of white privilege.