This article written by Russ Bahorsky was originally published to The College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences news site on Oct. 8, 2026.
Before he became one of America’s most influential literary voices, Edgar Allan Poe was a 17-year-old student on the University of Virginia’s Grounds. Now, 200 years after Poe’s time at UVA, two faculty members are using his legacy to strengthen reading culture across Grounds and beyond.
Cristina Richieri Griffin, an assistant professor of English in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and Kirsten Gelsdorf, a professor of practice in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, have secured a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant to support “Poe at UVA,” a cross-Grounds initiative. The program coincides with both the bicentennial of Poe’s time at UVA and the nation’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The grant will support exhibitions, teacher workshops, book discussions and community events that use Poe’s work as a gateway to conversations about reading, history and civic life.
“Most people don’t realize that Thomas Jefferson and Edgar Allan Poe overlapped on Grounds,” Griffin said. “Those two moments in American history, the inauguration of American independence and Poe’s initiation here as the beginning of his literary imagination, actually intersected in this place.”
Why Reading Still Matters
Despite its focus on Poe, Griffin and Gelsdorf hope to do more than just commemorate a famous alumnus.
“Our recent inquiry and assessments have shown that many UVA students are eager to read more deeply, and faculty are just as committed to helping make that happen,” Gelsdorf said. “We have a real opportunity to revitalize UVA’s reading culture and reclaim attention, curiosity and community in an age of distraction.”
The pair say students and faculty today are navigating a moment marked by concerns about declining reading habits and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. At the same time, they see strong evidence that students still want opportunities to read deeply, build community and engage with ideas..
“We see a renewed joy and love for reading as an antidote to the loneliness that has plagued so many college campuses,” Griffin said. “Students want to read. They are frequently entering with larger skills gaps or more barriers to reading effectively, but the desire is there.”
Poe offers an ideal focal point for the effort, Griffin said, because students can encounter his work in the very place where he lived, studied and began developing the creative imagination that would shape American literature.
The initiative also highlights scholarship itself as a public good. Through exhibitions, lectures and discussions, faculty and community partners will explore how Poe’s brief time at UVA influenced his later work while making humanities research accessible to broad audiences.
The collaboration between the Arts & Sciences and the Batten School faculty members reflects the project’s interdisciplinary ambitions. Griffin said Gelsdorf’s experience co-leading the Read for Action initiative with the United Nations that built communities through books and combined reading programs and humanitarian policy initiatives brings a perspective that complements her own background in literary scholarship and working with K–12 educators across the Commonwealth.
“Through our partnership, we can approach the opportunity to recenter reading at UVA from a variety of different ways of thinking about community engagement and the student experience,” Griffin said.
The project and its ambitious scope have also drawn praise from University leadership.
“Professors Griffin and Gelsdorf’s Hoos Reading research shows that students want to rediscover the delight of reading and cultivate the capacity for sustained attention,” said Brie Gertler, UVA’s interim executive vice president and provost. “Now they are taking that same spirit beyond Grounds with this brilliant and timely project. On the 200th anniversary of Poe’s time at UVA, it invites our community to explore the breadth of his work, far beyond ‘The Raven.’ And just in time for Halloween, it offers schoolteachers resources to help students appreciate the joy of immersion in a good book through Poe’s haunting poetry and prose.”
“I’m thrilled Cristina and Kirsten will share their scholarship on Poe with the University and local community through collaboration with colleagues across Grounds as well as with the local library system, city schools and the Poe Museum,” added Alev Erisir, interim vice provost for academic affairs, “What a wonderful way to strengthen a culture of reading and shared discovery at UVA!”
For Griffin and Gelsdorf, the work is ultimately about more than just Poe. The initiative is part of a new broader effort called the UVA Reading Collaborative which aims to call attention to reading as a shared intellectual and social experience and the foundation of a meaningful university education.
“Universities are where creative initiatives like this one come to life, and having UVA’s support to make them happen is one of the most rewarding parts of being a faculty member,” Gelsdorf said. “We want to celebrate a university culture of deep thought and invite students and the wider Charlottesville community to find ways to revitalize the joy of reading together.”
Upcoming Events
Supported by the grant, “Poe at UVA” includes a variety of events developed in partnership with UVA Library, UVA Center for the Liberal Arts, the Raven Society, Shakespeare on the Lawn, the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, the Poe Museum in Richmond and other collaborators. Programming includes:
- “Edgar Allan Poe at UVA: 1826 | 2026,” an exhibition at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library examining how Poe’s time at UVA shaped his literary imagination.
- Poe Book Club: JMRL Edition (Oct. 17), a community discussion at Charlottesville’s Gordon Avenue Library inviting adults to explore Poe’s stories and poems in a welcoming, discussion-based setting.
- Poe-try for Kids (Oct. 28), an interactive program introducing young readers to poems including “The Raven” and “The Bells.”
- “Why Read Poe?” (Oct. 28), a public lecture by Emily Ogden, a UVA English professor and 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, examining Poe’s continuing influence on American literature and culture.
- Poe Book Club: Early Birthday Edition (Jan. 6), a webinar with UVA Lifetime Learning featuring a conversation with one of Poe’s most recent biographers
More information and a full calendar of events are available at https://poe.virginia.edu/.
