Register here  The Center for Social Concerns hopes you will join it each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Angel Adams Parham is an associate professor of sociology and a senior fellow with the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Virginia. She is the author of The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature. We will consider how questions of moral purpose and character are integral to education. 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.

Javier Zamora is a Salvadoran poet and activist. In his debut New York Times bestselling memoir, Solito, Javier retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually through the Sonoran Desert. Zamora was a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O’Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign. Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Department of American Studies, Institute for Latino Studies -- Join the Center for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons of home football weekends for MVP Fridays: lectures by national leaders, journalists, and writers on questions of meaning, values, and purpose.Learn more

Join the Center for Social Concerns in the Coffee House for free food, fellowship and informal conversation around justice. Featuring AngLes Southern soul comfort food. Co-sponsors: Initiative on Race and Resilience; Procurement Services; and  University Operations, Events, and Safety.

Frank Shovlin (University of Liverpool) will deliver the 2024 Hibernian Lecture, “Like a Prayer: The Novels of John McGahern.”  One of the most acclaimed Irish writers of the second half of the 20th century, John McGahern (1934–2006) authored six novels. His final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, was named the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year in 2003 and adapted into a 2023 film of the same name. Shovlin’s lecture will contextualize the political and social networks into which McGahern was born and explore religious aspects of his work as a writer. The 2024 Hibernian Lecture is cosponsored by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies.About the speaker Frank Shovlin is professor of Irish literature in English at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. A native of the west of Ireland, he is a graduate of University College Galway and the University of Oxford. Shovlin is the author of numerous articles and book chapters as well as four monographs: The Irish Literary Periodical 1923–1958 (2004); Journey Westward: Joyce, Dubliners and the Literary Revival (2012); Touchstones: John McGahern's Classical Style (2016); and John McGahern's Dublin (2021). He edited The Letters of John McGahern (2022), and is currently writing McGahern’s authorized biography.In 1978, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians undertook a campaign to establish an endowment at the University of Notre Dame for illuminating the Irish heritage in America. Thanks to their support, since then the Cushwa Center has administered a variety of programs—including the Hibernian Research Award—supporting the study of the Irish experience in Ireland and America. Each year, the center invites a distinguished scholar or author to deliver the Hibernian Lecture at Notre Dame on some aspect of the Irish experience. Image: John McGahern and his siblings on the Feast of Corpus Christi, circa 1946. Note: Hasia Diner (New York University) had previously been scheduled to deliver the 2024 Hibernian Lecture on the subject of her latest book, Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America. The Cushwa Center is working to reschedule Diner’s visit and lecture at Notre Dame. For updates on upcoming events and other news, sign up at cushwa.nd.edu/subscribe.   Originally published at cushwa.nd.edu.

Celebrate the launch of Virtue in Virtual Spaces: Catholic Social Teaching and Technology — the latest book in the Center for Social Concerns’ Enacting Catholic Social Tradition series published by Liturgical Press. About the book At its best, the internet channels the world into a global village of sorts, where digital citizens learn from each other, explore new modes of creation, and help others work through dilemmas in both physical and virtual spaces. Virtue in Virtual Spaces argues that the internet doesn’t have to be the cultural wasteland of click-bait, partisan politics, and vulgar content that we see too often today. Technology has tremendous potential for good because of the inherent goodness of human creation and creativity which can be achieved through the development and use of technology. The authors draw from writing on virtue ethics and Catholic Social Teaching to demonstrate this potential goodness of technology. Eight of the main themes of Catholic Social Teaching are used to build a framework for designing technology to promote human flourishing. In this book, readers will engage with the philosophies behind their favorite social media platforms, examine how the design features in these platforms shape habits and imagination, and gain dialogue-based skills to bring virtue back into virtual spaces. About the authors Louisa Conwill is a Ph.D. student in computer science and engineering at Notre Dame. Her research focuses include computer vision, human-computer interaction, and technology ethics. She has a particular interest in how the teachings of the Catholic Church can inform technology ethics. Megan Levis Scheirer is an assistant professor of the practice with the Center for Social Concerns and Notre Dame’s College of Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Notre Dame. Her research interests relate to questions concerning how technology shapes the cultural understanding of what it means to be human and how technology can be designed to encourage virtue and the common good. She’s also working to bring character formation into engineering curricula. Walter Scheirer is the Dennis O. Doughty Collegiate Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Notre Dame. He is a global technology leader, serving as the chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Community on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and as a board member of the Computer Vision Foundation. Scheirer is also a cultural critic and historian, commenting on the social context of emerging technologies from the realistic perspective of a technologist, and promoting technology development informed by Catholic social teaching that upholds the common good. About the series Enacting Catholic Social Tradition is a series dedicated to the systematic application of Catholic social teaching to real-world problems and issues. Written for both academics and pastoral practitioners who want to draw on and learn more about the rich resources of Catholic social tradition for the practical work of justice, the series aims to strengthen the capacity of the Church to respond lovingly and well to the demands of the Gospel.

Join in for an insightful and dynamic panel discussion on the upcoming 2024 U.S. election, featuring prominent voices in journalism and politics. This event will offer diverse perspectives on the key issues, candidates, and potential outcomes that will shape the future of the United States. Panelists:Gerard Baker, Editor-at-Large, The Wall Street Journal: With decades of experience in political journalism, Baker will provide an in-depth analysis of the electoral landscape, drawing from his extensive knowledge of American and global politics.Carlos Lozada, Opinion Writer, The New York Times: Lozada, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will bring his sharp analytical skills to the discussion, offering a critical examination of the candidates' platforms and the broader political climate.Dianne Pinderhughes, Presidential Faculty Fellow, and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, The University of Notre Dame: Pinderhughes holds a concurrent faculty appointment in American Studies, is a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute, and is a Research Faculty member in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research addresses inequality with a focus on racial, ethnic, and gender politics and public policy in the Americas, explores the creation of American civil society institutions in the twentieth century, and analyzes their influence on the formation of voting rights policy.Francis Rooney, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See: Rooney, with his rich background in diplomacy and politics, will provide a unique perspective on the international implications of the U.S. election and insights into the intersection of faith and politics.Moderator:Dean Marcus Cole, Notre Dame Law School: As the moderator, Dean Cole will guide the conversation, ensuring a balanced and engaging dialogue. His expertise in law and education will help frame the discussion in a broader societal context.Don't miss this opportunity to hear from esteemed experts as they dissect the 2024 election and its potential impact on the United States and the world. The Rooney Center thanks the Notre Dame Law School and the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative for co-sponsoring this event.Originally published at rooneycenter.nd.edu.

Ilyon Woo is the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. She has received support for her research from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Antiquarian Society, among other institutions. Ilyon is also the author of The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and The New York Times. Ilyon has traveled the country to speak at bookstores, museums, schools, and book festivals, and she has been featured on such programs as NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and CBS Sunday Morning. She holds a BA in the Humanities from Yale College and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Department of American Studies, Department of History, Program of Liberal Studies — Join the Center for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons of home football weekends for MVP Fridays: lectures by national leaders, journalists, and writers on questions of meaning, values, and purpose. Reception and book signing to follow.Learn more

Join the Medieval Institute for a thrilling tailgate filled with fencing, excitement, and camaraderie! This gameday, the Medieval Institute is very excited to welcome perennial favorites Theatrica Gladiatoria  back to campus. Theatrica Gladiatoria’s professional performers and educators will offer dazzling swordplay alongside fascinating information about martial arts from the European Middle Ages both as historical practice and as living tradition! This is a hands-on event featuring basic instruction in medieval fencing for those who are interested. Complimentary food and drink will be provided. This event is free and open to the public—all people and all ages are welcome! Originally published at medieval.nd.edu.

Candy Gunther Brown (Indiana University, Bloomington) will deliver the 2024–25 Cushwa Center Lecture. Brown received a Research Travel Grant from the Cushwa Center in 2023 for a biography of Francis MacNutt, to be published in the Eerdmans Library of Religious Biography series. More recently, she secured a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant for Researchers in support of the book. The Cushwa Center recently interviewed Brown about her research on MacNutt and the dramatic growth of charismatic Christianity over the past half century. This event is free and open to all. About the speaker Candy Gunther Brown is professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. A historian and ethnographer of religion and culture, her research and writing have dealt with evangelical print culture and U.S. evangelicalism; global Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, science, medicine, and religion; and religious practices related to alternative healing, including yoga and mindfulness. Past projects have received support from, among other sources, the John Templeton Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.Image: Candy Gunther Brown, left; Francis MacNutt, right, at Notre Dame Stadium on June 14, 1974 (courtesy of Notre Dame Archives). Originally published at cushwa.nd.edu.

Emily Conroy-Krutz (Michigan State University) will discuss her book Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell, 2024) at the Cushwa Center's fall 2024 Jay P. Dolan Seminar in American Religion. Commentators for this seminar are Heather Curtis (Tufts University) and Amy S. Greenberg (Penn State). From the publisher Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in 19th-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power. Were missionaries serving the interests of American diplomacy? Or were they creating unnecessary problems? As Emily Conroy-Krutz demonstrates, they were doing both. Across the century, missionaries forced the government to articulate new conceptions of the rights of U.S. citizens abroad and of the role of the United States as an engine of humanitarianism and religious freedom. By the time the United States entered the First World War, missionary diplomacy had for nearly a century created the conditions for some Americans to embrace a vision of their country as an internationally engaged world power. Missionary Diplomacy exposes the longstanding influence of evangelical missions on the shape of American foreign relations.Inaugurated in 1980 and named in 2023 to honor the Cushwa Center’s founding director, the Jay P. Dolan Seminar in American Religion convenes each semester at the University of Notre Dame to discuss a notable book recently published in the field. Along with faculty and graduate students from Notre Dame, scholars from throughout the Midwest travel to campus to attend as invited guests of the Cushwa Center. The featured author engages with two invited commentators as well as the larger group. The Saturday morning seminar is free and open to all. Originally published at cushwa.nd.edu.

Register here  The Center for Social Concerns hopes you will join it each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Helene D. Gayle, M.D., M.P.H., began serving as the 11th president of Spelman College on July 1, 2022. A pediatrician and public health physician with expertise in economic development, humanitarian, and health issues, she previously worked in leadership roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and was the president and CEO of the international humanitarian organization, CARE and the Chicago Community Trust. We will have a conversation about her work at Spelman and how higher education can promote democracy and the common good. 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.

The Social Concerns Fair is open to students, faculty, and staff looking to engage more deeply with the city of South Bend. Meet representatives from community organizations addressing a range of issues, including education, housing, health care, disability, food security, immigration, and human rights. Booths will be set up throughout Geddes Hall. Find more info at socialconcerns.nd.edu/fair.

Speaker Mary Gentile is the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good's Practitioner in Residence, and is a world-renowned ethicist, consultant and author. Gentile’s innovative cross-disciplinary curriculum develops and cultivates values-driven leadership in business, and has been used in undergraduate, MBA and executive education in hundreds of business schools. Free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored by The Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership.

Register here  The Center for Social Concerns hopes you will join it each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Sneha Mantri, MD, MS, is a physician and director of Medical Humanities at Duke University School of Medicine. Abraham Nussbaum, MD, is a physician, chief education officer at Denver Health, and an author of several books, including the recently released Progress Notes. Mantri and Nussbaum wrote essays on generosity for the fall issue of the Virtues & Vocations magazine. We will discuss their essays and others from the issue, American healthcare, and medical education. 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.

The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to host a lecture by Professor Eva Del Soldato (University of Pennsylvania) titled: A Reckless and Scandalous Doctrine: Matthias Ferchius, a Franciscan in the Index  This paper delves into the intriguing journey of a forgotten booklet by the Franciscan Matthias Ferchius (1583-1669), drawing from recently unearthed material. It uncovers a fascinating blend of Biblical exegesis, poison expertise, medical reasoning, and rhetorical balancing acts, all in an audacious attempt by Ferchius to present no less than a revisionist account of the death of Jesus Christ. The paper will engage in the dialectic between Ferchius and the Holy Office censors, shedding light on the aspects of Ferchius’s text that raised particular concerns. It will also demonstrate how the pursuit of “new” outlooks in philosophy and theology always necessitated a firm reliance on tradition, a fact exemplified by other episodes of Ferchius’ intellectual career. Lastly, it will bring to the fore the paradoxical outcomes of this form of “conspiracy” philology.  Eva Del Soldato is associate professor of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the FIGS Graduate Program and serves as interim director of the Center for Italian Studies. She was trained in philosophy and intellectual history at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Her research is primarily devoted to Renaissance thought and culture, particularly the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions. Her current project is focused on lovesickness treatises in the Counterreformation period. She is the author of the monographs Simone Porzio (2010) and Early Modern Aristotle. On the Making and Unmaking of Authority (2020). She has also published several articles and editions, including the Italian translation of Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis. She has co-edited several volumes (the most recent is Plato in the Italian Universities, 2024). She received— among others — fellowships from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Villa I Tatti, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbuettel, the Huntington Library in Pasadena, and she has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Warwick, UK. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Milan, the University of Bergamo, and the 2022/2023 Charles Speroni Chair at UCLA. She has been the interim director (2019/2020) of the Global Medieval Studies Program at Penn, and she is currently the executive secretary of the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS).   The lecture is co-sponsored by the Medieval Institute.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.