Cory Shaman

What drives my teaching and scholarship? It’s my conviction that we must understand and treat the nonhuman world with much greater care. And what’s so compelling is that such care can be knitted to a profound responsibility to our fellow humans. I strive to enable students to see our social and environmental relations more clearly and honestly. That’s why you’ll often find me traipsing through Pavilion gardens with students as we tune our attention to the gnarled branches of a Kentucky coffee tree, to rainwater washing the grime of streets into drains, to the ephemeral beauty of Virginia bluebells, or to the perils of squirrels crossing McCormick Road, all caught up with the people of UVa to form a complex community. Treating Grounds as a living classroom is one of the great lessons of COVID for me: holding class outside was at first a defensive measure to find safe ways to learn together, but students found real joy in connecting to nature, in cultivating a deeper respect for the environment, in sharing ideas about how to live more responsibly with the nonhuman world and each other. The hope of mutual flourishing in the face of the pandemic is a touchstone of my teaching.