Melissa Borja, Assistant Professor in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, will be delivering the first talk in the University of Virginia's Asian American Religious Experience lecture series, "(Ad)ministering Resettlement: How US Refugee Policies Changed Hmong Religious Life."

Dr. Borja researches and teaches about religion, migration, race, ethnicity, and politics in the United States and the Pacific World, with special attention to how Asian American religious beliefs and practices have developed in the context of pluralism and the modern American state. Her book, Follow the New Way: American Refugee Resettlement Policy and Hmong Religious Change (Harvard University Press), draws on oral history and archival research to investigate the religious dimensions of American refugee policy—how governments have expanded capacity through partnerships with religious organizations and how refugee policies have shaped the religious lives of refugees. Animating her work is a deep fascination with how new religious diversity has complicated old practices of governance and, in turn, how Americans have attempted to govern new religious diversity.

The talk, co-sponsored by the College of Arts & Science's Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the East Asia Center and the Department of Religious Studies, will be held Thursday, September 12, from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. in Gibson 341.