Engaging Grounds

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“In me everything is already flowing…” – Luce Irigaray 

The movement of water is determined by the body that contains it. From transportation, drainage, and energy-generating systems of pipes, dams, and catchments to the porous aqua-ecological boundaries established by beaches, coastlines, and riverbeds, water circulates perpetually through the infrastructures of our manmade and natural environments. We do not always see where the water goes, but we know these cycles of absorption and release: the trickling, the flooding, the rippling, the pour, the churn, the drip, the gush. Sasha Fishman’s My Lungs (2026) embodies these hydro-logics of circulation.

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“In me everything is already flowing…” – Luce Irigaray 

The movement of water is determined by the body that contains it. From transportation, drainage, and energy-generating systems of pipes, dams, and catchments to the porous aqua-ecological boundaries established by beaches, coastlines, and riverbeds, water circulates perpetually through the infrastructures of our manmade and natural environments. We do not always see where the water goes, but we know these cycles of absorption and release: the trickling, the flooding, the rippling, the pour, the churn, the drip, the gush. Sasha Fishman’s My Lungs (2026) embodies these hydro-logics of circulation.

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Anna Beecher, author of the novel Here Comes the Miracle and the essay-memoir We All Come Home Alive, writes across fiction and nonfiction with particular attention to memory, perception, and the complexities of selfhood. Her work explores how experience is shaped, remembered, and transformed through language.

Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, critic, and scholar whose collection Arrow brings lyrical precision to questions of identity, power, intimacy, and form. Across her creative and critical work, she combines intellectual rigor with a restless curiosity about the possibilities of language and poetic expression.

Together, Beecher and Chakraborty represent two distinctive and complementary approaches to contemporary writing, offering an evening of work that moves between narrative and lyric, reflection and experiment, personal experience and broader cultural inquiry.

This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.

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The opening lecture will trace a short history of AI, from early expert systems to current large language models, and examine how these systems are built on deeply uneven infrastructures: training data that overwhelmingly represent the Global North, opaque pipelines of extraction from archives and the web, and technical choices that can erase or misrepresent Indigenous and marginalised voices. It will unpack concrete examples of bias and harm in generative AI, and connect them to longer histories of colonial knowledge-making and control.

The second part of the session invites participants into a guided reflection and practical exercise on “designing otherwise.” Working in small groups, attendees will map out one real or imagined technology such as an app, a dataset, a model, or a workflow, and systematically re‑think it through decolonial lenses: whose knowledge is included or excluded, who controls data and infrastructure, what communities benefit or bear risks, and what forms of accountability and reciprocity are built in. Drawing on experiences from AI work with Latin American and Indigenous archives, the workshop will offer prompts and simple frameworks that participants can take back to their own projects, with the aim of turning critical awareness of AI’s problems into concrete principles for building more just, situated, and community‑anchored technologies. 

A historical archaeologist, Patricia Murrieta-Flores is a Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence at Tecnológico de Monterrey in México, and a Chair Professor at the History Department at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is an international reference in the application of artificial intelligence for the analysis of colonial history and cultural heritage. She has led multiple high-impact research projects funded by organizations such as the ESRC, AHRC, NEH, CONACyT, and Schmidt Sciences, consolidating more than 20 international grants. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and has held global leadership positions, including Secretary of the Executive Board of ADHO. Her work has been recognized with international awards and more than 70 publications in high-impact scientific journals. In addition, she advises top-tier institutions such as multiple international research councils, the Science Museum in London, and major research infrastructures across Europe.  

This event is brought to you by the UVA Library DH Center, in co-sponsorship with the Institute for the Arts & Humanities and Open Spanish. It is free and open to all, but registration is required to reserve your seat.

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The Teaching and Learning Team is hosting an open house, where you can wander the 3rd floor of Clemons Library, listen to a live student jazz band performance, and participate in hands-on, creative activities that will be set up in our Audio Studio, Video Studio, and new Photography and Animation Studio.

Are you interested in learning more about the RMC's range of audio and video production equipment? This is a great opportunity to connect with the team, ask us questions, and test out the amazing creative resources that we offer! 

We can't wait to see you there!

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For centuries, the history of colonial Latin America has been trapped in fragile manuscripts that only a handful of specialists could read. This lecture shows how new AI methods are finally teaching computers to read the messy, beautiful handwriting of the 16th to 18th centuries, turning millions of pages of colonial Spanish into searchable “real data” in a matter of weeks instead of centuries. Drawing on projects in Mexican and Spanish archives, it will introduce calligraphy‑specific handwriting-recognition models, tools that map words onto places, and new language technologies that clean and standardise early modern Spanish while preserving its historical accuracy. Beyond the technical breakthroughs, the talk asks what becomes visible when Indigenous communities, enslaved people, traders, healers, and local officials emerge clearly from texts that were previously inaccessible at scale. It will argue that opening these archives is not just a scholarly achievement, but a decolonial intervention: it allows new stories to be told, and supplies today’s large AI models with voices and experiences from Latin America that have been almost entirely missing so far. 

A historical archaeologist, Patricia Murrieta-Flores is a Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence at Tecnológico de Monterrey in México, and a Chair Professor at the History Department at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is an international reference in the application of artificial intelligence for the analysis of colonial history and cultural heritage. She has led multiple high-impact research projects funded by organizations such as the ESRC, AHRC, NEH, CONACyT, and Schmidt Sciences, consolidating more than 20 international grants. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and has held global leadership positions, including Secretary of the Executive Board of ADHO. Her work has been recognized with international awards and more than 70 publications in high-impact scientific journals. In addition, she advises top-tier institutions such as multiple international research councils, the Science Museum in London, and major research infrastructures across Europe.  

This event is free and open to all. It is brought to you by the Institute for the Arts & Humanities, in co-sponsorship with UVA Library DH Center and Open Spanish.

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A dramatic trial during the Revolutionary War helped Americans reckon with the significance of independence from Great Britain. In The American Revolution on Trial: A New Nation Confronts the Burden of Independence, T. H. Breen, emeritus professor of American history at Northwestern University, explores how a court case against an American colonel and the response of American military officers to a British general provided the setting for the new nation to assert its political and cultural independence and to show itself and the world that it was capable of delivering justice and securing the rule of law. 

During this saga, an American prosecutor, who trained in the law offices of future president John Adams, helped to establish the legitimacy of the American republic, as he offered a critique of nobility and aristocratic privilege while making the case for a political order based on equality. Breen joins moderator Paul Halliday, UVA professor of history. 

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The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia and the Collaborative Curation Lab of the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures present Jilarti (Brolga), an award-winning live performance by Pedro Wonaeamirri, on Thursday, September 3 at 5:30 pm in the Upper West Oval Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia.

Pedro Wonaeamirri is a renowned senior Tiwi artist and cultural leader who is also the current president of Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association in Milikapati on Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia.

This ground-breaking multimedia artwork celebrates the performative foundations of Tiwi artmaking, where songlines, dance and body ornamentation are central parts of the creative practice. It is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Nginingawula Jilamara Ngirramini kapi Jurra | Our Art Stories on Paper: Printmaking at Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, on view in the Upper West Oval Room of the Rotunda through January 24, 2026.

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Speaking in Code (formerly Coffee + Code) hosts informal gatherings that include presentations focusing on the technical aspects of ongoing projects, demonstrations by invited guests, or new tools we're experimenting with lately that might help you develop your own projects or practice. These conversations are open to all.

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The UVA Library's DH Center Open House is one of a variety of informal events hosted in the DH Center throughout the year.  It is a great way for beginning and experienced researchers, both students and faculty, to get involved with us, and in our wider DH community.  Please drop in to:

• meet our staff
• explore our collaboration spaces and tools, including hands-on activities in VR, GIS, and the Makerspace
• learn about the breadth of DH work at UVA
• get info about fellowships and other opportunities for research and pedagogical collaborations
• connect with colleagues across departments and at other UVA DH centers and labs

Refreshments will be provided.  All are welcome!

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The event will begin with a poetry reading by nourbeSe Philip, whose groundbreaking body of work has transformed contemporary understandings of language, history, memory, and justice. Following the reading, she will be joined in conversation by Kiki Petrosino, Professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia, for a discussion of craft, artistic practice, and the enduring questions that animate Philip’s work.

The evening will be introduced by Tola Sylvan, the inaugural Kapnick Fellow in Creative Writing, who is in residence this year and teaching in UVA’s undergraduate creative writing program.

A reception will follow the event. Books will be available for purchase courtesy of the UVA Bookstore, and nourbeSe Philip will sign books following the program.

Join us for a rare opportunity to hear one of the most innovative and influential literary voices of our era in reading and conversation.

Free and open to the public.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Kapnick Foundation who makes this residency possible. You may learn more about the Kapnick residency at: https://creativewriting.virginia.edu/kapnick-distinguished-writer-residence-0

Program Details

At 11:30am there will be a free pre-concert talk in the concert space that will focus on the Rzewski piece and the context of the Chilean protest chant that inspired it.

Performance begins at 12:30pm

​Aaron Copland: Threnodies I & 2
Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Performer Details

ANNIE HUI-HSIN HSIEH is a Taiwanese-Australian composer working in acoustic and electroacoustic mediums. Her work focuses on creating visceral physical experiences and articulates sonic expressions in terms of spatial gestures and relational sociality. Hsieh’s music has been presented internationally at events such as MATA Festival, Metropolis New Music Festival, OzAsia Festival, WasteLAnd Music Series (LA), Mise-en Festival, Adelaide Festival, Tectonics Festival, International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) World Music Days, MaerzMusik, Asian Composers' League (ACL) Conference, International Rostrum of Composers, SEAMUS (Society of Electroacoustic Music US), MOXonic, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Forum Wallis, Sonic Pavillion Festival, Paysages|Composés (France), Eavesdropping Symposium (UK), Sonic Matters Festival (Switzerland), Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music, and Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music. Some recent commissions include Symphony Services Australia, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, Coriole Festival, Experimental Sound Studio Chicago, Wien Modern, Hypercube Ensemble, ELISION Ensemble, and Foundation Royaumont, among others. Her works have also been performed by ensembles including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Mivos Quartet (USA), Rubriks Collective (Australia), The Sound Collector's Lab (Australia), The Monash Sinfonia (Australia), Thin Edge New Music Collective (Canada), Ensemble Dal Niente (USA), Ensemble Offspring (Australia), Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (Switzerland), and Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (Hong Kong). She has been a recipient of several awards and honors such as the APRA (Australian Performance Rights Association) Art Music Fund, the Monash University International Women’s Day Composition Commission, the Belegura Composer Award as part of the Melbourne Prize 2022, the Monash Performance Art Centre David Li Sound Gallery Commission, as well as support from the New Music USA, the Tomayko Foundation in Pittsburgh, Australian Cultural Fund, Creative Australia grants, the National Cultural and Arts Foundation (Taiwan), and is a recent grant receipient of the Schmidt Sciences AI and Humanities Virtual Institute (HAVI). Hsieh completed her bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and her doctorate at the University of California, San Diego. She is currently an Associate Professor of Music Theory and Electronic Music at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. 

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Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

Writer's Eye Drop-In tours will be held several weekends during the Writer's Eye season, and will highlight the 8 works of art selected for this year’s program. The tour will include guided observation, discussion, and written prompts.

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.

Program Details

Mieczysław Weinberg: String Trio, Op. 48

Samuel Barber: Cello Sonata in C minor, Op. 6

Ludwig van Beethoven (arr. Ebers): Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 arr. for string quintet​

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Justice Barrett discusses her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, offering her thoughts on legal interpretation, the role of the judiciary, and the broader relationship between society and the rule of law.

This event is produced by UVA’s Karsh Institute in partnership with UVA Law’s Karsh Center for Law and Democracy. Copies of Listening to the Law will be available for purchase on-site. 

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Whether you are curious about art or looking for something artful to do, drop by the museum for hands-on creative activities inspired by our newest exhibitions. Fralin Fun Day is for anyone — at any age or skill level — who wants to experiment with artmaking and enjoy the art on view. 

Facilitated by Fralin staff for visitors of all ages. Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.  

This event is free and open to the public!  

Details

Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.

Details

Speaking in Code (formerly Coffee + Code) hosts informal gatherings that include presentations focusing on the technical aspects of ongoing projects, demonstrations by invited guests, or new tools we're experimenting with lately that might help you develop your own projects or practice. These conversations are open to all.

Details

Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.

Program Details

RAVEL  “Five O’clock Foxtrot“

LIGETI  Atmosphères

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS  Violin Concerto

– Intermission –

STRAVINSKY  The Firebird Suite (1945)

Music Director Benjamin Rous opens his 10th Anniversary Season with a program that spans a century of musical adventure. Violinist David Sariti takes center stage in Vaughan Williams’ Violin Concerto, composed in 1924–25, which combines neo-Baroque tendencies with the composer’s distinctive pastoral English violin writing. Before that, Ravel’s “Five O’clock Foxtrot,” a playful, jazz-inspired ragtime sequence from the opera L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Ligeti’s Atmosphères, a piece dense in mesmerizing sound textures. The concert culminates in Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, whose score blends Russian folklore with the composer’s famed orchestral wizardry.

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Larry J. Sabato, Founder and Director of the Center for Politics, University of Virginia

Larry J. Sabato is a New York Times best-selling author, four-time Emmy winner, and one of the nation’s most respected political analysts. A frequent guest on major networks such as CNN, BBC, and CNN International, he provides sharp, insightful commentary on American politics. A Rhodes Scholar, Sabato is the founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and has held visiting appointments at Oxford and Cambridge universities. Over his distinguished career, he has taught more than 20,000 students, earning the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University of Virginia’s highest honor. In 2021, he celebrated his 50th year of affiliation with the University of Virginia.

Details

Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

Writer's Eye Drop-In tours will be held several weekends during the Writer's Eye season, and will highlight the 8 works of art selected for this year’s program. The tour will include guided observation, discussion, and written prompts.

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.

Details

Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

Writer's Eye Drop-In tours will be held several weekends during the Writer's Eye season, and will highlight the 8 works of art selected for this year’s program. The tour will include guided observation, discussion, and written prompts.

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.

Details

Can Democracy and Capitalism Be Reconciled? is the question at the heart of a new book from Oxford University Press that explores the meaning of both democracy and capitalism and considers their inherent tensions. Didi Kuo, fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and contributor to the book, and UVA Darden School of Business assistant professor Scott C. Miller, director of the Karsh Institute’s Democracy and Capitalism Lab and co-editor of the book, explore the main ideas and themes in this collection of essays, including how political economies could be reformed to bring them more in line with their values such that democracy and capitalism could better coexist.  

The conversation is moderated by UVA professor of politics Sidney Milkis, also a co-editor of the book.

Details

The Institute for the Arts & Humanities, in co-sponsorship with the UVA Library DH Center and Hereford College, as part of the "For the (Digital) Humanities" Lecture Series, presents:

Emily K. Johnson is assistant professor in the Department of English (Technical Communication and Digital Humanities), graduate faculty in the Technical Communication MA program, and core faculty in the Texts and Technology program at the University of Central Florida. She is co-author of Critical Making and the Age of AI and Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Games-Based Learning (both with Anastasia Salter).

Anastasia Salter is professor of English and director of Graduate Programs and the PhD in Texts and Technology at the University of Central Florida. In addition to Critical Making and the Age of AI and Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Games-Based Learning (both with Emily Johnson), Salter is the author of numerous books including Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives (with Stuart Moulthrop), Adventure Games: Playing the Outsider (with Aaron Reed and John Murray), Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media (with Bridget Blodgett), and What is Your Quest? From Adventure Games to Interactive Books.

This event is free and open to all.

Details

Speaking in Code (formerly Coffee + Code) hosts informal gatherings that include presentations focusing on the technical aspects of ongoing projects, demonstrations by invited guests, or new tools we're experimenting with lately that might help you develop your own projects or practice. These conversations are open to all.

Details

Emily K. Johnson is assistant professor in the Department of English (Technical Communication and Digital Humanities), graduate faculty in the Technical Communication MA program, and core faculty in the Texts and Technology program at the University of Central Florida. She is co-author of Critical Making and the Age of AI and Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Games-Based Learning (both with Anastasia Salter).

Anastasia Salter is professor of English and director of Graduate Programs and the PhD in Texts and Technology at the University of Central Florida. In addition to Critical Making and the Age of AI and Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Games-Based Learning (both with Emily Johnson), Salter is the author of numerous books including Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives (with Stuart Moulthrop), Adventure Games: Playing the Outsider (with Aaron Reed and John Murray), Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media (with Bridget Blodgett), and What is Your Quest? From Adventure Games to Interactive Books.

This event is brought to you by the UVA Library DH Center, in co-sponsorship with the Institute for the Arts & Humanities and Hereford College. It is free and open to all, but due to space limitations, registration is requested.

Details

Bryan Berger, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS)

Bryan’s laboratory works at the intersection of biotechnology, environmental and human health to develop solutions that protect our food, water and health. He was recognized most recently as UVA’s 2025 Edlich-Henderson Innovator of the Year and the SEAS Invention of the Year for developing bio-based tools to eliminate diseases that affect apples, wine grapes, poultry, seafood and other key industries important to the commonwealth and beyond. He also works collaboratively with local community partners, farmers and tribal communities to develop and implement low-cost biosensors to detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) and other contaminants of concern to develop strategies that prevent exposure in food, water and other consumer products. 

Professor Berger is the founder and CSO of Lytos Technologies, a leading biological revolutionary company that creates targeted solutions to address humanity’s toughest challenges, from food safety and agricultural productivity to precision healthcare and beyond.

Details

Writer's Eye is The Fralin Museum's annual ekphrastic writing competition, now in its 40th year! Public audiences are invited to respond in poetry and prose to works of art on view in the museum. 

Writer's Eye Drop-In tours will be held several weekends during the Writer's Eye season, and will highlight the 8 works of art selected for this year’s program. The tour will include guided observation, discussion, and written prompts.

You can submit your entry with our Writer's Eye 2026 Entry Form.