The Center for Social Concerns presents the 2024 Annual Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Lecture: An evening with Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Welcome from University President Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C. Part of Notre Dame Forum 2024-25 Free, no ticket required. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. Interested in taking a free shuttle from the Notre Dame campus? Shuttle Interest Form Co-sponsors: Department of American Studies, Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, Initiative on Race and Resilience, The Law School, Office of the President --- Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of the bestselling book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which has been adapted into a feature film. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.

As part of an album release tour, Cornelia Sommer, along with Dror Baitel, present a magical evening of original arrangements of classic fairy tale music, as well as newly commissioned works. This concert is free and not ticketed.  Originally published at music.nd.edu.

Schola Musicorum, an early vocal music vocal ensemble, presents Gregorian chant from medieval manuscripts, early polyphony, and early organ works. For tickets, call 574-631-2800 or visit performingarts.nd.edu. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

Letras Latinas’ 20th anniversary celebration continues. For this seventh installment of our yearlong celebration, we welcome Presidential Inaugural Poet and National Humanities Medal recipient, RICHARD BLANCO. He will be joined by RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ, award-winning writer, editor, and critic, whose most recent book, Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, we will also be celebrating. Special guest SUSANA PLOTTS-PINEDA, from the Library of America, will be on hand to speak about this ground-breaking volume. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Reception to follow at the conclusion of the event. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, the Center for Social Concerns, Department of Romance Languages and Literature, Initiative on Race and Resilience, the Poetry Foundation,  the St. Joe County Public Library (South Bend, Indiana), and José E. Fernández Hispanic Caribbean Studies Initiative   More on featured poets: Richard Blanco was selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body: New and Selected Poems. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: an Inaugural Poet’s Journey, and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees. Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County. Rigoberto González is the author of eighteen books of poetry and prose. His awards include Lannan, Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships, the PEN/ Voelcker Award, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. Contributing editor for Poets & Writers, he is the series editor for the Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press, and the editor of Latino Poetry: A Library of America Anthology. Currently, he’s Distinguished Professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. Originally published at latinostudies.nd.edu.

Join the Liturgical Choir of the Notre Dame Children's Choir the second and third Mondays of the month in-person or online for a prayerful Vespers service. Notre Dame Children's Liturgical ChoirOriginally published at sma.nd.edu.

The Annual Liss Lecture in Judaica, featuring Prof. Magda Teter of Fordham University. Location TBD. Originally published at theology.nd.edu.