Fall 2024
Jesus Christ and Other Religions: Problems and Perspectives
Monday, September 9, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Please join us in welcoming Fr. Bryan Lobo, S.J., a Jesuit from Mumbai, India, to campus, where he will serve for the 2024-2025 academic year as a McFarland Center International Visiting Jesuit Fellow. Following two terms as Dean of the Faculty of Missiology at the Gregorian University Rome, Fr. Lobo will teach a course on the theology of religions and research theological aspects of Christian proclamation and mission that consider the unique insights of Christian theology in a religious and culturally pluralistic world.
Watch the lecture >>
Democratic Futures Forum / What Democracy Means to Us
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
6:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Join members of the Democratic Futures Forum and campus partners for a reflection on why democracy matters. The participants include Greg Burnep, Political Science; Diana Dukhanova, Russian Studies and Montserrat; Mary Ebbot, Classics; Daniel Klinghard, Political Science and Dean of Education and Academic Experience; Thomas Landy, McFarland Center for Religious, Ethics, and Culture; Kathryn Lu Hsu, Classics; and Charles Todd, Dean of Students.听
With special guest: Vincent Rougeau, President of the College of the 51小黄车.
Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again
Monday, September 16, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Dr. Susan Solomon, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry at MIT, argues that we鈥檝e solved planet-threatening problems before, and we can do it again. She鈥檒l examine the inside stories of past environmental victories to extract the essential elements of what has made change possible and what鈥檚 needed now to do it again.
Dr. Susan Solomon is internationally recognized as a leader in atmospheric science, particularly for her insights in explaining the cause of the Antarctic ozone 鈥渉ole.鈥 Her lecture will take place on the United Nations鈥 International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.听
The Church as Refuge and Asylum for Migrants?
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
When human life is persecuted and endangered, communities of refuge arise to protect life, even if it is against domestic law to do so. Dr. Leo Guardado, Assistant Professor of Theology at Fordham University, will examine the tradition of the church as a site of refuge and protection, focusing on the 1980s sanctuary movement in the United States.听
Continuity within Chaos: Caring for Individuals Living Chronically in Shelters and on the Streets
Monday, September 23, 2024
7:00 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Dr. Jim O鈥機onnell, President and Founder of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (and the 2017 51小黄车 Commencement speaker), will share how he transitioned from the role of Chief Internal Medicine resident at MGH to the country鈥檚 first street doctor for those experiencing homelessness. Recounting his forty years of serving Boston鈥檚 most vulnerable population, Dr. O鈥機onnell will illuminate the history of homelessness and the undue burden of co-occurring disorders among chronically homeless persons. Most importantly, Dr. O鈥機onnell will reflect on the many lessons he鈥檚 learned while caring for his patients.
Co-sponsored with the Health Professions Advising Preprofessional Program.
Israel/Palestine in World Religions: Whose Promised Land?
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not just another contest by competing nationalisms or an instance of geopolitical competition. It is also about control of sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each with their own interests at stake in a tangle of secular and theological claims. 听
S. Ilan Troen is Lopin Professor of Modern History, emeritus at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, Stoll Family Professor in Israel Studies, emeritus at Brandeis University, USA, and founding director of the Israel Studies centers at both institutions.听
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding and a Deitchman Family Lecture on Religion and Modernity.
There鈥檚 Something About Mary: Devotion, Pilgrimage & Belonging in Colonial & Post-Colonial India
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Throughout history, the fortunes of political organizations have often been linked to the cosmic patronage of gods and saints. Yet some saintly devotions begin and flourish despite disinterest from the state; such is the case with a Marian figure of devotion in South India, Our Lady of Vailankanni. Neglected by the colonial state(s), she has in the 20th century become for Indian Catholics a figure of devotion and an icon of their belonging as a minority in India.
Brent Howitt Otto, S.J. is the McFarland Center鈥檚 Global Catholicism Predoctoral Fellow and a historian of modern South Asia.
Democratic Futures Forum / Immigration 101: What's at Stake in 2024?
Monday, September 30, 2024
7 p.m., Hogan Ballroom
Legal Processes, Competing Perspectives, and Policies in Practice听
One of the thorniest issues that democracies face today is immigration. In the United States, immigration will play a significant role in the 2024 presidential election. If you have questions about this vital issue or would like to have a meaningful conversation about it, this event is for you.
Every Day Is Earth Day: Understanding the Long-Term Impacts Of April 22, 1970
Monday, October 7, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Dr. Daniel Hungerman, Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, considers the history of Earth Day and presents evidence showing how actions on the original Earth Day, April 22, 1970, led to transformed communities years and even decades later. The lesson is clear: regular people, acting in small and disorganized groups, can come together to make a real and lasting difference on the environment.听
A Phi Beta Kappa Lecture co-sponsored with the Department of Economics & Accounting.听
Racial Capitalism: Asian Americans as the Miner鈥檚 Canary of American Racism
Thursday, October 10, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
What if race didn鈥檛 create racism, but racism created race? What if racism is less about prejudice and hatred and more about greed and power? And what do Asian Americans have anything to do with any of this? This public lecture looks at these questions from a religious perspective and tries to tell a story about race and racism where Christianity both hurts and helps.
Jonathan Tran is Associate Dean for Faculty at Baylor鈥檚 Honors College, where he also teaches theology and ethics. He is the author of Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Co-sponsored by Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Advocating Student Interest in Asia (A.S.I.A.).
Colloquium: Politics of Knowledge and Disciplinary Challenges in Ancient Mediterranean Studies
October 24, 2024 - October 26, 2024
This colloquium will explore the varied epistemologies and tangible practices across the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as their suppression within ancient political contexts and modern disciplinary practices. The participants, professors in Classics and Biblical Studies, will scrutinize assertions of power and expressions of resistance, as well as the hegemonic processes, ancient and modern, of silencing and appropriating those expressions. The colloquium will also feature a keynote address by Joy Connolly, a renowned American scholar of classics and the president of the American Council of Learned Societies.
Keynote - All the World鈥檚 Pasts: The Case for a New Field
Thursday, October 24, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
As ancient texts, artifacts, and images circulate on the internet, there is a need to ask new questions and sharpen needed skills. Joy Connolly, President of the American Council of Learned Societies and renowned Classics scholar, will argue that creating a new field of global ancient studies is the most effective way forward to study the world鈥檚 premodern cultures. This new field would focus on improving mutual understanding between peoples, interpreting evidence using various disciplines, and studying the full plurality of human activity, including under-studied periods and regions.听
The Desire for Division: A Political Psychology Framework for the 2024 Election
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
American politics requires candidates to separate 鈥渦s鈥 from 鈥渢hem,鈥 motivating people to look for differences rather than commonalities. Dr. David C. Wilson, dean of the Goldman School at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Professor of Public Policy, argues that polarization across a host of dimensions鈥攊ncluding racial, gender, partisan, religious, and ideological groupings鈥攔esults from what people want from candidates more so that who candidates are.听
Co-sponsored by Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.听
Sea, Sand, and Rocks: Regarding the Social-Materiality of Time
Thursday, November 14, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Dr. Mayra Rivera is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University. Rivera works at the intersections between the philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race, and gender. Drawing from Caribbean decolonial thought, this lecture will propose that climate change calls for rethinking our conceptions of time.
A Deitchman Family Lecture on Religion and Modernity. Co-sponsored by Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.听
Deuteronomy, Trauma, and Politics听
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Moses鈥 farewell discourses in the book of Deuteronomy present a program for constituting Israel as a 鈥榥ation鈥 in political terms and, at the same time, as the 鈥榩eople of God鈥. In this talk, Dr. Dominik Markl SJ, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies at Innsbruck University, Austria, will reflect on how trauma theory can help us understand both the political and religious dimensions of Deuteronomy. He will also offer some reflections on how trauma, politics, and religion are still intertwined in our contemporary world.
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.