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In the course of their education, early Virginians like Thomas Jefferson encountered Greek and Latin texts, monuments, and constitutional ideas. So, it’s no surprise that those texts and ideas would end up shaping and influencing the cultural history of Virginia’s Tidewater region. Haller’s most recent book looks at how Jefferson’s readings in Greek and Roman texts led him to articulate ideals of religious freedom and a conviction that all human beings are created equal.  Learn how the rediscovery of a lost palimpsest may have inspired a plan for a planetarium—never completed—in the Rotunda at UVA, how a paint chip prised from a metope at UVA sheds light on Jefferson's engagement in the question of whether the Greeks painted their statues, and how a tiny inaccuracy in John Trumbull's famous painting of Independence Hall sheds  light on Jefferson's ideas about Greek democracy. Benjamin Haller, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Classics at VWU.

For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

In the nearly 250 years of America's existence, only 45 men have held its highest office, a strange assortment of politicians, citizens, generals, businessmen, schemers, dreamers, heroes, and failures. Convinced he might find something new to say about the Chief Executives, essayist Colin Rafferty wrote short creative works that took on each president. In his book Execute the Office, George Washington's teeth dance the Virginia Reel while Ronald Reagan meets John Wayne in a film script. Franklin Pierce gets diagnosed, Rutherford B. Hayes sends postcards from home, George W. Bush watches the hurricane index rise, and we consider what the notion that anyone can become president really means to us. Colin Rafferty received an MFA from the University of Alabama and teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Mary Washington. He writes about monuments and memorials (Hallow This Ground, Break Away Books, published in 2016), presidents (Execute the Office, Baobab Press, published in 2021), and Vietnam (book in-process).

For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Buttons supporting William Jennings Bryan endorsed him—in Yiddish. Fans of Herbert Hoover, a Quaker, demanded “A Christian in the White House,” even though he was running against a Catholic. Bahais proudly declared their support for Barack Obama on their lapels, as did Buddhists, Catholics, Confucians, Druze, and many others. As former New York Mayor Ed Koch declared, “Buttons, stickers, and songs . . . are the sparkle and glitter of which our campaigns are made.”  This exploration of presidential campaign buttons examines the diversity of religious terms, images, and symbols and how they have been used to communicate both positive and negative messages to potential voters. Eric M. Mazur, Ph.D., is the Gloria and David Furman Professor of Judaic Studies at VWU and serves as the Fellow for Religion, Law, and Politics for the Robert Nusbaum Center.

For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.