What We Do
VFH programs apply the various perspectives of history, literature, philosophy, cultural and religious studies, and other fields of the humanities to contemporary and abiding human questions.
They contribute to the interpretation and understanding of cultural traditions and current policy debates.
A-Z List of Programs
- Arts of the Book Center
The Virginia Arts of the Book Center exists to promote the values of the humanities through appreciation of the arts of the book, visual and verbal literacy, creativity, and the fostering of traditional and contemporary skills. To this end we operate a working studio and print shop to which community members may gain access and through which they can gain training in the art and crafts of printing, printmaking, and book arts. - African American Heritage
The African American Heritage Program, formally established in 2000, reflects a commitment that has been central to the VFH for more than three decades. It includes a growing database of more than 400 African American historic sites statewide, an African American Heritage Trails program begun in partnership with the Virginia Tourism Corporation, grants, publications, a traveling exhibit ("Don't Grieve After Me"), and a community partnership initiative. - Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Developed and maintained by VFH Senior Scholar Jerome S. Handler, a historical anthropologist and Michael L. Tuite Jr., former head of the digital media lab and assistant director, Robertson Media Center at the University of Virginia Library. - BACKSTORY With the American History Guys
BACKSTORY is a brand-new call-in radio show that brings historical perspective to the events happening around us every day. - Center for the Book
The Center for the Book's vision is that every Virginian will have access to books and reading and to the power that books and reading provide to shape and inform personal and civic life. The Center for the Book promotes books, reading, literacy, and the literary life of Virginia through the programs listed below. - Center on Violence and Community
The Center on Violence and Community is dedicated to research and education about the long term effects of violence and its role in other suffering. It focuses in particular on mass violence, genocide, and intergenerational violence. It supports research by and for the survivors of violence, focusing in particular on their spiritual lives and experiences. - Encyclopedia Virginia
Encyclopedia Virginia (EV) is a multi-year project of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities set to debut in 2007. EV will chronicle the heritage of Virginia through the perspectives of all the ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse peoples that have lived here and have helped make the state what it is today. - Fellowships
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is committed to humanities research in the public interest. The VFH Fellowship program offers time, space, and resources to scholars applying the tools of history, philosophy, ethics, cultural studies, and literary criticism to matters of public concern. - Festival of the Book
The Virginia Festival of the Book is an annual public festival for children and adults featuring authors and book related professionals in over 200 programs. Produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, VABook! is held in Charlottesville, Virginia each March to promote literacy and celebrate reading and books. - Folklife Program
The Virginia Folklife Program explores Virginia's expressive, occupational, and other folk traditions through a rich variety of programs, including performances and music recordings, films, exhibits, festivals, publications, and teachers' institutes. - Grant Program
The VFH grant program accepts proposals from nonprofit organizations seeking funding to develop public humanities programs for audiences in Virginia. Since 1974, VFH has awarded more than 2,500 grants, bringing scholars and citizens together to promote a greater understanding of the humanities. - Humanities Feature Bureau
Through short, lively public radio news reports on Virginia history, current events, and personalities, the Bureau covers social change, cultural highlights and our common quest for meaning. - Indian Heritage Program
The Virginia Indian Heritage Program will help redress centuries of historical omission, exclusion, and misrepresentation. It will create opportunities for Virginians of all ages, as well as visitors to the state, to learn about the history and cultures of Virginian Indian people and communities, past and present.
- Letters About Literature
Letters About Literature is a national reading-writing contest. Readers write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre-- fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic, explaining how that author's work changed the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves. - Media Program
The Media Program is home to VFH Radio, which produces With Good Reason and the Humanities Feature Bureau. Other activities include a funding pool for documentary film, programs that foster understanding of the visual media and global culture, and an editing facility that supports independent filmmakers. - Motheread/Fatheread
Motheread ® and Fatheread ® is a multi-faceted, humanities-based, family literacy program that uses children's literature as the texts for learning for both adults and children and serves adults with a wide variety of reading abilities and prior educational experience. It is a resource available for use by both established and new literacy and social service agencies. - Regional Councils
The Regional Councils are volunteer groups of individuals representing the diversities of the areas they serve. They are assisted by VFH staff in their efforts to promote regional awareness of the humanities and to encourage local use of VFH resources. They also work, together with VFH, to identify and serve the special needs of their regions and to create programs that preserve, invigorate, and celebrate their regions' unique historical and cultural identities. - Re-Imagining Ireland
From May 7-10, 2003, Americans from around the country and Irish from across the sea converged on Charlottesville, Virginia, to take part in Re-Imagining Ireland, a groundbreaking international ‘town meeting’ of Ireland, out of Ireland – a time-out to discuss the past and present, and build bridges to the future. - Roots Summer Seminar
Roots is a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for Teachers. The director of the Seminar is Joseph C. Miller (T. Cary Johnson, Jr. Professor of History at the University of Virginia). Participants include 15 teachers from all over the United States with teaching and/or professional responsibilities that they wish to enhance with greater knowledge of Africa, the Middle Passage, and the people who arrived here in North America in slavery. - South Atlantic Humanities Center
SAHC, a VFH partnership with UVa and Virginia Tech, is dedicated to collaborative public humanities programming that builds understanding of the history, culture, and potential of our region (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, US Virgin Islands, and Virginia) and related or overlapping regions (including Caribbean, Appalachian, Latin American, African, Iberian, Atlantic World). - Southern Humanities Media Fund
Supports inventive film, television, and radio programs that explore Southern history and identity. - "VA Books!" Monthly Column
The "VABooks!" monthly feature column appears in newspapers across the Commonwealth. "VABooks!" suggests a book for Virginians to read in common to encourage dialogue and promote understanding of our heritage and our future. Every month, guest columnists recommend an outstanding work of adult or children's literature. - VFH Press
The VFH Press publishes books such as The Bill of Rights, the Courts, and the Law (1987, 1991, 1999), Siege (2001), Where the River Flows (2003), and Tough Times Companion (2003, 2005). - VFH Radio
Home to VFH's radio development and production activities, VFH Radio produces a statewide, weekly radio interview program, With Good Reason, and has developed and coordinates a Humanities Feature Bureau. - Virginia Vignettes
Virginia Vignettes is a brief weekly column which concisely presents a question from Virginia history along with an interpretative answer by a noted historian or scholar of Virginia. - With Good Reason
This thought-provoking half-hour show is broadcast weekly by all of Virginia's public radio stations. Through engaging interviews, our programs explore the worlds of the arts, sciences, history, and politics.
