“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963) Racial justice and anti-Blackness are pressing global challenges that demand our attention. Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking panel discussion with distinguished experts who will delve into these critical issues. They will explore the far-reaching impacts of systemic, institutional, and organizational racism, and uncover the urgent need for change on a worldwide scale. Panelists: Joseph Butler, Assistant Dean for Access, Diversity and Inclusion, Princeton UniversityCarla Goar, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, Kent State UniversityAmber Hewitt, Racial Equity Practitioner and Counseling Psychologist  Moderated by Gwendolyn Purifoye, Assistant Professor of Racial Justice and Conflict Transformation, University of Notre Dame  Greg Wilson, Assistant Professor of Management and Public Affairs, Ohio State University  Photo credit: "Prayer Changes Things," (c) 2017, courtesy of Eurnice Harris from Good Victory Art Studio. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Rev. Msgr. Anthony Onyemuche Ekpo is the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He will join the Keough School of Global Affairs during the Nanovic Institute for European Studies' Keeley Vatican Lecture, the latest in this series that seeks to connect the University of Notre Dame with the Vatican. His message, titled "The Reform of the Roman Curia and the Promotion of Integral Human Development," will focus on integral human development, a critical component of Catholic Social Teaching that emphasizes supporting the growth of each person as a holistic human being. This powerful calling inspires the mission of the Keough School of Global Affairs. We invite all students, faculty, staff, and the general public to attend this timely event. Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., will introduce Rev. Msgr. Ekpo.About the Keeley Vatican Lecture series The Keeley Vatican Lecture, facilitated annually by the Nanovic Institute, provides a way to deepen Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to explore questions surrounding the University’s Catholic mission. Established in 2005 through the generous support of alumnus Terrence R. Keeley ’81, lecturers typically spend several days on campus, joining classes, celebrating Mass with students, and conversing with faculty members. Past Keeley Vatican Lectures have included Sister Raffaella Petrini (secretary-general of the Vatican City State), Rev. Fr. Hans Zollner, Dr. Barbara Jatta, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, and Ukrainian Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak. Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

The Kroc Institute has selected The Honorable Emilce Cuda as the featured speaker for the 26th Annual Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace. As Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Holy See, Cuda is a renowned international speaker who has published extensively on moral social theology, democracy and Catholicism in liberal contexts, theology of the people and culture in a Latin American context, economic migration, the socio-environmental ecological crisis, and more. Cuda is a member of the research team, “The future work of labor after Laudato si,” at the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) and the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC). She received a Ph.D. in theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and specializes in social moral theology. Lunch and conversation will follow this lecture in C103, Hesburgh Center for International Studies. The Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace, which began in 1999, were established through a gift to the Kroc Institute from Mrs. Anne Marie Yoder and her family. Each year, the Kroc Institute invites a leading thinker, writer, scholar, and/or peace advocate to deliver a lecture related to nonviolence, religion, and peace. Following the lecture, audience members join in informal dialogue and discussion with the speaker and with each other. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

This Notre Dame Forum event is co-sponsored by the Office of the President and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the University’s Keough School of Global Affairs. Featuring Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor, Harvard University; Director, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Professor Allen is a renowned professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy. She is also a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, tech ethicist, distinguished author, and mom. Allen's work to make the world better for young people has taken her from teaching college and leading a $60 million university division to driving change at the helm of a $6 billion foundation, writing as a national opinion columnist, and advocating for strong public health policy, democracy renovation, civic education, and sound governance of and with new technology. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, her leadership in rallying coalitions and building solutions resulted in the country’s first-ever Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience; her policies were adopted in federal legislation and a presidential executive order. She was the 2020 winner of the Library of Congress' Kluge Prize, which recognizes scholarly achievement in the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. She received the Prize "for her internationally recognized scholarship in political theory and her commitment to improving democratic practice and civics education." She was a lead author on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a framework for securing excellence in history and civic education for all learners, K-12, released in 2021. The annual Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy, established by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in 1995, honors the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, a global champion of peace and justice, and the founder of the Kroc Institute. Each year a distinguished scholar, policymaker, and/or peace advocate is invited by the Kroc Institute director to deliver a major lecture on an issue related to ethics and public policy in the context of peace and justice. Originally published at forum2024.nd.edu.

As part of the Keough-Naughton Institute's fall 2024 speaker series, Professor Peter Shirlow will deliver a lecture titled “The Failings of Irish Republicans and the National Question in Ireland.” Lecture Abstract This lecture will explore how, despite post-Brexit Referendum predictions of a united Ireland by as early as 2021, there has been, at best, limited growth in recorded support for ending partition between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Growth of Northern Ireland’s Catholic population has been less dramatic than predicted and the region now has the fastest growing economy in the UK. Peter Shirlow asserts that in this context, pro-united Ireland campaigns and republican activism, especially via civic fora and social media, have failed to significantly close the gap between Irish unity and pro-union proponents. In this lecture, Shirlow will consider how Irish Republican arguments for unity contain internal contractions: underscoring the economic successes of the South while also indicating its structural deficiencies, or pointing to socio-economic deficiencies of Northern Ireland even while Republicans are co-authors of its new found economic growth. Ultimately, Shirlow argues, the shortcomings of Irish republicanism lie in its inability to read and understand the new sociology of Northern Ireland– particularly temporal and social shifts that potentially render the inevitability thesis of Irish unification inconsistent, if not ineffective, in the short to medium term. Speaker Biography Professor Peter Shirlow (FaCSS) is the director at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. He was formerly the deputy director of the Institute for Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, QUB. He is the independent chair of the Executive Office's Employers' Guidance on Recruiting People with Conflict-Related Convictions Working Group and a board member of the mental health charity Threshold. He is a visiting research professor at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He sits on the editorial boards of Irish Political Studies and International Planning Studies. Professor Shirlow has undertaken conflict transformation work in Northern Ireland and has used that knowledge in exchanges with governments, former combatants and NGOs in the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Bahrain and Iraq. He has also presented talks to members of the US Senate and House of Representatives and is a regular media contributor. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

This event is part of the Kroc Institute’s series on intersectionality and justice as a beneficial framework and methodology paired with peace studies. The series is led by Ashley Bohrer, assistant professor of gender and peace studies, and features a variety of guest presenters who address the potential of intersectional analysis to transform timely global conversations and issues. Since the new millennium, Rwanda has been celebrated as a prosperous country with the highest number of women (61% in 2018) in its Parliament. Yet, President Paul Kagame has been winning Rwandan elections since 2003, and in 2024 was elected to a fourth term with 99.15% vote. Led by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the government has been criticized as an authoritarian state for its repression of political dissidents. Dr. Xianan Jin, lecturer in politics at the University of Exeter, will discuss her book project, "Selective Capital in Women’s Political Participation: Neoliberal Authoritarianism in Rwanda," which investigates the paradox between liberal political inclusion of women and oppressive state control. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.