Donovan Schaefer, an associate professor in the department of religious studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, has received the Virginia Public Humanities Fellowship. The fellowship helps a wide range of Virginians—from writers and university faculty members to independent scholars and community historians—pursue projects related to Virginia’s history and culture. Dr. Schaefer will be a resident at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

Dr. Schaefer is the author of several books on the relationship between emotion, power, society, and religion. His current research considers the affective dynamics of public material culture, especially Confederate commemoration. His project for the Virginia Public Humanities Fellowship explores a number of questions: What do monuments do? How do they shape public life? What roles have they played in U.S. history since the Civil War? Why have they become so prominent in our present moment? And what is at stake in their removal, transformation, defacement, or continued existence?  

In addition to researching the history of Confederate commemoration in Virginia, Dr. Schaefer’s project will involve a public-facing website, “False Image of History: Perspectives on Confederate Commemoration from the Black Press,” the result of a multi-year study of Black journalists’ responses to Confederate commemoration from Reconstruction to the present.