Roots Setting
The “Roots 2009” Seminar will meet in the recently remodeled, air-conditioned conference facilities of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, located in a pleasant campus-like setting just west of Charlottesville, or in the state-of-the-art library and media complex at the University of Virginia. The VFH is affiliated with the University of Virginia, and seminar participants will have visiting faculty status at the University and thus access to UVA. programs, services, facilities, and libraries, including full access to the University’s excellent libraries and its internet resources for the humanities – some of the most sophisticated in the world. Participants may also independently explore Virginia’s own deep African-American heritage at well-known historic attractions in the vicinity, including the Museum of African Art and the “African Voices” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, Colonial Williamsburg, and Thomas Jefferson’s and Sally Hemings’ home, Monticello, near Charlottesville. They will also find a rich array of entertainment and other cultural sites locally and within two or three hours’ drive. Charlottesville is a very pleasant and stimulating community, particularly in the summer.
UVA’s Alderman Library ranks among the largest university research libraries in the United States; it includes major collections in early American history and culture and significant holdings in literature, anthropology, African history, the history of the Americas, and other fields relevant to seminar participants’ interests, including vast manuscript holdings on African-Americans, slavery, and the American South. The University has particular faculty strengths in African history and anthropology and in African-American studies and is the home of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies.
Charlottesville is a small-ish city of approximately 40,000 people at the center of a metropolitan area now approaching 200,000 residents. The community nestles in the central Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is surrounded by extensive rural areas. It has repeatedly been ranked among the three most desirable cities in the United States to reside in. The average day-time temperature during July reaches the mid-80s, sometimes accompanied by high humidity as the summer settles in. Interstate 64 provides direct driving access to points east and west, and a major highway leads directly to the Washington DC area, just over two hours distant. Four commuter airlines provide sixty or so daily flights to major hubs in Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington; two AMTRAK lines connect with the Middle Atlantic and New England metropolitan corridor to the north, to Atlanta and other southern cities, and to Chicago in the west.
More than a million people visit the Charlottesville area each year, attracted by the University of Virginia (designed by Thomas Jefferson), Monticello (the home of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings), Ash Lawn (the home of James Monroe), and Montpelier (the home of James Madison). Washington DC with its overwhelming variety of sites of national and international significance, is located a convenient 110 miles to the northeast. The Blue Ridge mountains and Shenandoah National Park (with the Appalachian Trail) are about twenty miles to the west. Hiking and biking trails abound. There are numerous Civil War battlefields in the region, and colonial-era Tidewater towns and such historic sites as Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown lie 120 miles to the southeast.
The Charlottesville area has numerous restaurants of all styles, including a good range of ethnic cuisines (including Southern), shopping facilities of all types, bookstores, cinemas, public recreational facilities, and an extensive University and community cultural calendar, particularly in the summer. Don’t miss Friday evenings on the downtown pedestrian mall. The University of Virginia Medical Center, located within a ten -minute drive of VFH, is one of the leading health centers in the southeast, and the private Martha Jefferson Hospital provides additional facilities for a large, skilled community of health providers of all specializations.
