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 School of Architecture for the annual Michael Christopher Duda Center Lecture "Preservation Today" by Ashley R. Wilson, FAIA. Wilson will explore the role of preservation in addressing contemporary architectural challenges, from sustainable development to the conservation of recent heritage. Drawing on her extensive experience, she will discuss how preservation practices can foster community development and urban regeneration while maintaining the integrity of historic sites. Register for the lecture Originally published at architecture.nd.edu.

Join the Klau Institute and NDVotes for this installment of "Pizza, Pop, and Politics" as Chloe Gibbs, assistant professor of economics, discusses the imapct of the economy on the upcoming US election.  Originally published at klau.nd.edu.

Your 20th anniversary Presenting Series season is brimming with unmissable gems. One is the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the famed ensemble founded over 90 years ago, which our audiences last experienced in 2006. Encounter the raw power and unbridled emotion of Sibelius' Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich's explosive First Violin Concerto with incomparable violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja as a soloist, and a new work by Kennedy Center Honoree, Cuban-American composer Tania León. This rare treat will ignite your emotions through a concert of dazzling orchestral colors. GET TICKETS  

Peter Wallensteen, the Kroc Institute’s Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research professor emeritus, will discuss his new book, Sanctions for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: Moving Forward (Routledge, 2024). Co-edited with Uppsala University’s Armend Bekaj and appearing in Routledge’s Global Security Studies series, the volume examines the interplay between sanctions and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Specifically, it studies the conceptual frameworks behind the application of sanctions and the decision by states to pursue nuclear disarmament in their theoretical and practical expressions. Wallensteen’s contribution does much to update and stimulate the academic and policy debates on these issues by recasting them in light of contemporary global events, and considering case studies from the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean, India, China, Pakistan, Iran, and Africa. This book launch will take the form of a panel discussion, moderated by George Lopez, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., professor emeritus of peace studies, who authored one of the book’s chapters, “Sanctions as tools to achieve nuclear reduction policy: is there a better way forward?” Responses to the book will come from Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, and Monica Montgomery (BA '19), policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and members of Kroc’s Advisory Board who have worked extensively on nuclear disarmament. All are encouraged to attend the launch of this significant volume, which will be of particular interest to students of nuclear non-proliferation, economic sanctions, security studies, and international relations. Lunch will be provided after the event in the Hesburgh Center Great Hall. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

International scholars partake in a six-part seminar series devoted to Psalms in the first half of 2024. This series continues from where the 2023 series left off. The format will be a 60-minute lecture followed by a 30-minute discussion. These events are free and open to all, but registration is required.  Once registered, you will be sent an email with an invitation to the Zoom link for each session. Register for the last session The last meeting in the 2024 seminar cycle Meetings with the Psalms and Psalters – Series 2 will take place on Thursday, October 17th, 2024, at 12:00 EST / 18:00 CET. Our guest speaker, Sophia Dege-Müller (Hamburg University) will talk about Ethiopian and Eritrean psalters. Psalters in the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition The manuscript culture in Ethiopia and Eritrea remains vibrant, with Psalters being the most numerous among the hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. While the overall Psalter tradition has been remarkably stable since the 15th century, these manuscripts exhibit significant features that link them to the broader Christian world. This lecture will highlight various codicological elements and explore the importance of illuminated medieval Ethiopic Psalters, which not only reflect artistic traditions of Ethiopia and Eritrea but also provide insights into the theological and liturgical practices of the time. Additionally, the discussion will address paratextual elements that connect to the Patristic heritage, illustrating how these works serve as vital links between past and present Christian communities in the region. Sophia Dege-Müller is a researcher and scientific coordinator of the ERC project BeInf: the Connected Histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity led by Aaron Butts at the University of Hamburg. She is also a member of the editorial team of Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies. In recent years, her research has focussed on the manuscript traditions of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) and the Psalter tradition in Ethiopia and Eritrea. 12:00 Eastern Standard Time (NEW YORK, INDIANAPOLIS)17:00 Greenwich Mean Time (LONDON, DUBLIN)18:00 Central European Time  (WARSAW, BRUSSELS) (Individual session times are subject to change due to daylight savings time. Please check each session and the time conversion as the day approaches) Sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame, USA; John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland; the Research Group for the Study of Manuscripts (SIGLUM); and the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.