Dr. Jalane Schmidt, Keynote on Digital Library.

Jalane Schmidt is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where she teaches classes on Latin American, Caribbean, and African diaspora religions. For years, she has conducted field research and archival research in Cuba, and she is the author of "Cachita's Streets: The Virgin of Charity, Race and Revolution in Cuba" (Duke UP, 2015). She also teaches classes on critical whiteness studies and religion, and on social movements. She is an organizer with the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter. She has appeared in numerous national and international news outlets, and frequently speaks to audiences about whiteness, white supremacy, policing, and affordable housing. Schmidt has been active since 2016 in the local struggle to rid Charlottesville of its Confederate monuments, and during the 2017 #SummerOfHate, she helped organize counter-demonstrations against white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville.