Vo Trong Nghia, founder of VTN Architects, will discuss the durability and beauty of bamboo architecture, showcasing how this sustainable material supports both structural innovation and environmental design. Highlighting projects like the Grand World Phu Quoc Welcome Center, he will explore bamboo’s role in energy efficiency, natural ventilation, and creating harmony between built environments and nature. AIA CE credit avalible. Register Here Originally published at architecture.nd.edu.

What does Catholic "just war" theory teach about the conflict in Israel-Palestine? Do concepts in Catholic social teaching, such as "integral human development" or the "preferential option for the poor," provide any guidance?  In what ways might the Church's historic relationship with the Jewish people or the Pope's statements on war and peace in the Holy Land influence Catholic perspectives? Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about the events of October 7, 2023, the subsequent war, the tenuous ceasefire, the history of the region, and its future. The event will feature visiting speakers specializing in Catholic-Jewish and Catholic-Muslim relations, as well as the director of Notre Dame Jerusalem, who will convey Christian perspectives from the Holy Land. Notre Dame IDs will be required for entrance to this event, and backpacks and large bags will be checked.Featuring:Jordan Denari Duffner Theologian and Scholar of Catholic-Muslim Relations; Member, Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace Jordan Denari Duffner is a theologian and scholar of Catholic-Muslim relations, interreligious dialogue, and Islamophobia. She is a member of the Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) as well the National Catholic-Muslim Dialogue of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She obtained her Ph.D. in theology and religious studies at Georgetown University, where she now teaches as an adjunct lecturer. A former Fulbright scholar in Amman, Jordan, she is the author of two award-winning books: Finding Jesus among Muslims and Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination. Duffner was also a co-author of the 2024 Sign-On Letter by U.S. Catholics on Israel-Palestine.Daniel Schwake Executive Director, Notre Dame Jerusalem Daniel Schwake was appointed the executive director for Notre Dame Jerusalem  in April 2019. Schwake joined Notre Dame after a decade in the consulting industry. He most recently held the position of principal (associate partner) in the strategy consulting firm Oliver Wyman. He provided advice to top executives of large corporations, financial institutions, regulators, and ministries. He has led the execution of high profile engagements across the globe, covering a wide range of topics, incl. enterprise-wide strategy, financial planning, risk and regulation, re-organisation, and restructuring. He holds a B.Sc. and Diploma (M.Sc.) in business administration from the University of Münster and a doctorate in economics from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.Matthew Tapie Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, Saint Leo University Matthew Tapie is Associate Professor of Theology, and Director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, Florida. His teaching and research interests are in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Judaism and Christian theology, and Catholic-Jewish relations. From 2012-2014, Dr. Tapie was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at The Catholic University of America and was appointed a research fellow at CUA's Institute for Interreligious Study and Dialogue.  Dr. Tapie is the author of Aquinas on Israel and the Church: A Study of the Question of Supersessionism in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas, which was the focus of a special session at the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12, 2016.  Tapie is Series Editor of the Judaism and Catholic Theology series with The Catholic University of America Press. He is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' dialogue with Modern Orthodox Judaism, and with representatives of the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America.Moderator: Gabriel Reynolds Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame Gabriel Said Reynolds did his doctoral work at Yale University in Islamic Studies. Currently he researches the Qur'ān and Muslim/Christian relations and is Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame. He is the author of The Qur'ān and Its Biblical Subtext and The Emergence of Islam.  In 2012-13, Reynolds directed, along with Mehdi Azaiez, “The Qurʾān Seminar,” a year-long collaborative project dedicated to encouraging dialogue among scholars of the Qurʾān, the acts of which appeared as The Qurʾān Seminar Commentary. In 2018, he published The Qurʾan and the Bible with Yale University Press and in 2020 Allah: God in the Qur'an, also with YUP. At Notre Dame he teaches courses on theology, Muslim/Christian Relations, and Islamic Origins. He runs a YouTube channel, “Exploring the Qur’an and the Bible,” that features conversations on Scripture with leading scholars.Originally published at forum2024.nd.edu.

In this talk, Cheryl Lawther, professor at Notre Dame’s School of Law and a fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, will draw on her recently published book, Constructing Victimhood: Beyond Innocence and Guilt in Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2024), to expand the criminological, victimological, and transitional justice image of who we “see” as victims, what we “hear” as experiences of victimization, and who makes these determinations. In her talk, Lawther will argue that if transitional justice is to live up to its claims of being “victim-centered,” it is essential to widen its conceptual and practical boundaries to recognize the multiple and overlapping variables that construct and reproduce victimhood. Lawther will be joined by Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, professor of the practice and director of the Peace Accords Matrix, Joachim Ozonze (PhD candidate in Peace Studies and Theology) and Emma Murphy (Post-Doctoral researcher, Kroc Institute & Keough-Naughton Institute). Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to host a lecture by Professor Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University) titled:"Anticolonialism(s) as antiracism(s)?" Italian Radicals Facing 'Race' and the Colonial Question at the Turn of the Twentieth Century In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Italians fully participated in the racialization of the African populations that they and other Europeans colonized. At the same time, Italians themselves were often racialized by other Europeans (including Americans) and engaged in the racialization of southern Italians. In this context, some anthropologists and sociologists of leftist orientation such as Napoleone Colajanni questioned the idea of “pure races” and the racial hierarchies that placed Nordic peoples (including northern Italians) above southern Europeans. A number of leftist and radical thinkers and politicians — radical democrats, socialists, and anarchists — also rejected colonialism and especially the consequences that colonial wars had for the inhabitants of a country like Italy that was still poor and underdeveloped. Some anarchist geographers even claimed a right to so-called “barbarity.” To what extent did the critique of colonialism (including the internal variety) lead to an explicit rejection of anti-Black racism? Were anticolonial thinkers able to express sympathy and solidarity with the colonized people victimized by European aggressions? Analyzing the works of the thinkers and the leftist press of that period, this lecture will address these questions as part of a larger project on the history of antiracist beliefs and sensibilities in modern Italian culture. Silvana Patriarca received her laurea at the University of Turin and her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She has taught at Columbia University and the University of Florida, and is currently a professor in the Department of History of Fordham University. She specializes in the history of modern Italy and her research has ranged from the social history of industrialization to the intellectual and political history of statistics to the cultural history of nationalism and the construction of national identities in their intersection with gender and “race.” The author of the award-winning Numbers and Nationhood: Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge University Press) and of Italian Vices: Nation and Character from the Risorgimento to the Republic (Cambridge University Press), she has co-edited (with Lucy Riall) The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy (Palgrave Macmillan). She has held fellowships at the National Humanities Center (North Carolina) and at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, and visiting appointments at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales and at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) in Paris. Her most recent book, Race in Post-Fascist Italy: "War Children" and the Color of the Nation (2022), focuses on the experiences and representations of the "brown babies" born at the end of World War Two from the encounters between Black Allied soldiers and Italian women, and explores the persistence of racial thinking and racism in post-fascist and postcolonial Italy. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.The Italian Research Seminar, a core event of the Center for Italian Studies, aims to provide a regular forum for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, and colleagues from other universities to present and discuss their current research. The seminar is vigorously interdisciplinary, and embraces all areas of Italian literature, language, and culture, as well as perceptions of Italy, its achievements and its peoples in other national and international cultures. The seminar constitutes an important element in the effort by Notre Dame's Center for Italian Studies to promote the study of Italy and to serve as a strategic point of contact for scholarly exchange.Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.

A Brief History of the Future is presented by Mike Bechtel, managing director and chief futurist with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He helps clients develop strategies to thrive in the face of discontinuity and disruption. His team researches the novel and exponential technologies most likely to affect the future of businesses, and builds relationships with the startups, incumbents, and academic institutions creating them. The Ten Years Hence speaker series explores issues, ideas, and trends likely to affect business and society over the next decade. The theme of the 2025 series is Innovation: The Process of Creation and Renewal. Ten Years Hence is sponsored by the Eugene Clark Distinguished Lecture Series endowment. This is one of seven lectures in the Ten Years Hence Lecture Series. See website for details and other lecture dates. Free and open to students, faculty, staff and public.

Join the Institute for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons for Encounter: lectures by distinguished scholars in the field of Catholic social teaching, who will share their insights and provide critical conversation on matters of justice and the common good.  Reception to follow. Marcus Mescher is an associate professor of Christian ethics. He holds a Ph.D. from Boston College and specializes in Catholic social teaching and moral formation. His research and writing concentrate in the following areas: human dignity and rights; social/environmental justice for the global common good; how moral agency is impacted by cultural context and digital technology; the moral dimensions of friendship; sexual justice and the ethics of marriage and family life; liberation theology and inclusive solidarity; healing the psychological, spiritual, social, and moral harm caused by clergy abuse. Dr. Mescher has written dozens of popular and academic articles; he has published essays in the Journal of Moral Theology, the Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Jesuit Higher Education, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is the author of The Ethics of Encounter: Christian Neighbor Love as a Practice of Solidarity (Orbis, 2020) and Fratelli Tutti Study Guide (Paulist, 2021). His current research and writing focus on mental health and moral injury.