Work-in-Progress Seminars are designed to generate in-depth discussion of new scholarly work. For the pre-circulated paper and to attend, please register with the link below. Room location information will be shared with preparation materials following your registration.   During his Kellogg visiting fellowship, Fernando Ojesto Martínez Manzur will work on his project, “How to (Un)Build a Democracy: The Mexican Case,” which explores the challenges of building a democratic system and the ease with which it can be dismantled. Democracy worldwide, particularly in Latin America, is under attack. The Mexican experience will be the basis of this research, especially because it is a great example of how an electoral democracy was built; but unfortunately, it also serves as an ongoing example of how democracy can be “unbuilt” or dismantled. The project is divided into two main sections. The first section will analyze how a democracy is built, focusing on the democratic transition that Mexico underwent from 1977 to 2018. This section will outline the necessary and foundational requirements for building a democracy. The second part of the research will examine the current state of democracy in Mexico and how a 40-year democratic process has been disrupted in the past six years. Since 2018, democracy and its institutions have faced a constant threat, orchestrated by the government and its ruling party. This threat, rooted in the concept of political majorities, has escalated into a reality following the 2024 election, where the governing party secured almost complete control, including a supermajority in Congress, granting them the power to amend the Constitution. This part of the research will aim to understand the dismantling process Mexican democracy is undergoing. Register Here

A (different) Innovation Journey is presented by John Schroeder, the executive vice president at Marmon Holdings, Inc. who is responsible for the Retail, Foodservice and Water Groups. 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.

The Keough-Naughton Institute invites you to a conversation on literary biography with Professor Frank Shovlin, University of Liverpool, and Professor Brian Ó Conchubhair, University of Notre Dame. Shovlin and Ó Conchubhair will discuss their respective work on the biographies of writers John McGahern and Flann O'Brien, the research and creative processes involved in biography writing, and resonances between writers' lived worlds and the worlds they bring to life on the page. The conversation will be moderated by Gráinne McEvoy, assistant director of research programs at KNI. Speaker BiographiesBrian Ó Conchubhair is a professor of Irish language and literature at the University of Notre Dame and currently serving as interim chair of the Department of Irish Language and Literature. His research focuses on cultural nationalism; Irish-language fiction; the European fin de siècle; and modernism. He is currently editing a collection of Flann O'Brien Irish-language essays and articles. Recent publications include a co-edited (with Philip O'Leary) a special issue of Éire-Ireland on the contemporary Irish-language short story, and an article on Brendan Behan in Litteraria Pragensia. Forthcoming articles will appear in Cambridge History of the Irish Novel; The Cambridge History of Irish Poetry; and The Revival in Irish Literature and Culture.    Frank Shovlin is a native of the west of Ireland who was educated at the Universities of Galway and Oxford before taking up a position at the University of Liverpool where he is now professor of Irish literature in English. He has published a wide range of books, chapters and articles on a range of subjects revolving around the development of literature in 20th-century Ireland, with his most recent book The Letters of John McGahern winning widespread critical acclaim. He is currently the M. H. Abrams Visiting Research Fellow at the National Humanities Center, North Carolina where he is completing his authorized biography of John McGahern.   Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

The Institute for Social Concerns presents the 2025 Junior Parents Weekend Lecture with Eliza Griswold. Introduction by Rev. Hugh R. Page, Jr., vice president for institutional transformation. Reception to follow. socialconcerns.nd.edu/griswold Pulitzer Prize-winner Eliza Griswold is a journalist, poet and translator. “[Writing] with a reporter’s shrewdness and a poet’s grace (Princeton Humanities Council)”, her work centers on the complex nexus of religion, politics, human rights, and the environment. Director of Princeton University’s vaunted Program in Journalism, Griswold has been a contributing writer for The New Yorker for over two decades and has written and translated several volumes of poetry. Her newest book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, provides a timely reflection on a growing pattern of fracture and polarization across foundational American institutions. An intimate chronicle of a close-knit church in Philadelphia as it dissolves amidst idealistic crises, it traces the drift away from traditional organized religion and churchgoing in the wake of modern society’s increasingly divergent belief systems. Deeply committed to journalism’s role in sustaining a healthy democracy, Griswold has been hailed for humanizing divisive social and political issues through compassionate portrayals of the people and communities most affected. Her exacting and immersive journalism teases out the stories behind fraying institutions and communities, offering us urgently needed perspectives on a rapidly evolving world—one of ever greater divides—between the have and have nots, rural and urban disparities, the perception of environmental issues, shifting political identities, and the sea-changes within contemporary faith and spiritual communities.

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