Humans and the Humanities: Engaging Visions for Teaching in Tough Times
Andrew Kaufman, Lecturer and Academic Community Engagement Faculty Fellow, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and a Research Affiliate in the Curry School of Education

This interactive workshop offers faculty the opportunity to take a close look at the current crisis in the humanities and explore ways to create a brighter future together—through compelling arguments and innovative teaching practices. After a brief discussion of several current responses to the crisis, participants will learn about the pedagogy behind a pioneering academic community engagement course at UVa, Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Community Leadership, in which undergraduate students facilitate discussions about classical Russian literature with incarcerated youth at Virginia juvenile correctional and treatment centers. This course has proven successful in inspiring students to rediscover the vital relevance of the humanities to their own personal and professional lives as well as to the larger community in which they live. Workshop participants will be invited to engage in hands-on learning activities that are used in the Books Behind Bars course, and then to reflect on the implications of those activities for their own teaching goals and aspirations. The workshop concludes with an invitation to participants to articulate their own personal vision for the future of humanities teaching in the academy.

Dr. Andrew Kaufman (Ph.D., Stanford University) is a Lecturer and Academic Community Engagement Faculty Fellow in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and a Research Affiliate in the Curry School of Education. A recognized Russian literature scholar, he is author of Understanding Tolstoy (The Ohio State University Press, 2011), Give 'War and Peace' a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times (forthcoming with Free Press/Simon and Schuster.) In 2009, Dr. Kaufman created the course, Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Community Leadership, in which undergraduate students at UVa facilitate discussions about Russian literature at Virginia juvenile treatment and correctional centers. Featured on NPR and in Inside Higher Ed, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and elsewhere, the course has attracted the attention of academia nationally and internationally as an example of innovative humanities teaching that engages the whole student through service learning, learning by doing, and student community engagement.

Sponsored by the Teaching Resource Center