Get those voices ready to sing along with this Hollywood classic! While not initially a major financial success due to its large budget, The Wizard of Oz was a critical and cultural sensation when released in 1939 (losing the Best Picture Oscar to similarly-popular Gone with the Wind). Its multi-generational nostalgia solidified with its annual holiday telecasts, first on CBS and later NBC, where Dorothy (Judy Garland) became iconic and her journey well-known: A tornado hits Kansas and sends her and her little dog, too, to Oz. Once there, she befriends a brainless Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a heartless Tin Man (Jack Haley), and a spineless Lion (Bert Lahr). The four follow the yellow brick road to meet the eponymous Wizard while battling the Wicked Witch of the West (née Elphaba). GET TICKETS    

When fate brings Belfast schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed “low life scum” Naoise Ó Cairealláin and Liam Óg, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, the music group Kneecap quickly becomes unlikely figureheads of a Civil Rights movement to save their mother tongue. But the trio must first overcome police, paramilitaries, and politicians trying to silence their defiant sound while their anarchic approach to life often makes them their own worst enemies. In this fiercely original sex, drugs, and hip-hop biopic, Kneecap's members play themselves, laying down a global rallying cry for the defense of native cultures. GET TICKETS  

Register here Nathan Hatch served as the president of Wake Forest University for 16 years and previously served as provost at the University of Notre Dame. He recently published The Gift of Transformative Leaders(link is external). We will discuss this book and his lifelong commitment to making character central in higher education. We hope you will join the Institute for Social Concerns each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.

Rachel SchwartzKellogg Visiting Fellow Amid increasing global concern with corruption, policymakers and civil society organizations have urged the adoption of international anti-corruption commissions (IACCs) to assist in strengthening the rule of law where politicians lack the will and capacity to crack down on corruption themselves. Under what conditions are IACCs granted the autonomy to investigate and prosecute corruption, and when do domestic elites succeed in constraining their authority and capacity? Drawing on comparative analysis of IACCs in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, this lecture will unpack the domestic and transnational determinants of IACC design, offering policy insights on the possibilities and limits of international support for strengthening the rule of law in fragile contexts.   Click here for more information

In his three-person song cycle “A Visit With Emily,” Tom Cipullo sets both poems and letters by Emily Dickinson and her correspondent Thomas Wentworth Higginson to explore the nature of friendship, love and loss. Department of Music faculty members Stephen Lancaster and Anne Slovin collaborate with Matthew Giallongo and Jonathan Young of Purdue University-Fort Wayne to perform this fascinating piece. This event is free and not ticketed.  Originally published at music.nd.edu.

The Office of Institutional Transformation, in partnership with the Initiative on Race and Resilience, invites students, faculty, and staff to gather weekly for support and fellowship. Wellsprings: A Time for Connection and Care provides a safe space for members of the campus community to discuss fears and concerns related to social divisiveness. Some sessions may feature presentations or information from campus resources. To suggest a topic, please contact Eve Kelly at ekelly11@nd.edu. Originally published at diversity.nd.edu.