Over the past year, CPN has worked with the Laudato Si' Research Institute (LSRI), Campion Hall, University of Oxford on a series of consultations on the Catholic Church and mining, including a conference in Bogotá, Colombia in June 2025. That process will result in the upcoming publication of the report "Catholic Approaches to Mining: A Framework for Reflection, Planning, and Action." The report is a collaboration between CPN, LSRI, Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, the Holy See Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Caritas Internationalis. A virtual launch event will be held October 21, at 3:00 pm CEST / 1:00 pm GMT / 9:00 am EDT. The panel will feature speakers from the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Caritas International Federation, CPN, LSRI, and others. The event will be in English, but will include simultaneous translation in Spanish and French. The event will include:Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human DevelopmentElena Sofia Fanciulli, Caritas InternationalisJing Rey Henderson, Caritas PhilippinesLiliana Zamudio Vaquiro, Caritas ColombiaRev. Rigobert Minani, SJ, Centre d'Etudes pour l'Action Sociale (DRC) Séverine Deneulin, Laudato Si' Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of OxfordCaesar A. Montevecchio (moderator), Catholic Peacebuilding Network, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre DameRegistration Required Originally published at cpn.nd.edu.

Global experience of past 25 years shows that while mass movements succeed in toppling dictators, most countries do not succeed in establishing a democratic system. The vexing question is will Bangladesh, which has embarked on a democratic journey after experiencing sixteen years of Sheikh Hasina’s personalistic autocracy, succeed? Hasina was toppled in a popular uprising in July–August 2024 and fled the country. The country experienced unprecedented atrocities perpetrated by the members of the law enforcement agencies and the activists of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League in the wake of the movement. More than 1,400 people were killed and thousands have been injured. The country is currently being governed by an interim government, and an election is scheduled for February 2026. This presentation examines the challenges for the country drawing on the lessons of democratic transition and the country’s political dynamics involving a wide array of political forces and weak institutions.  Ali Riaz is a distinguished professor of political science at Illinois State University, a non-resident fellow of the Atlantic Council and the president of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS). He has served as the head of the Constitution Reform Commission in Bangladesh appointed by the Bangladesh’s interim government and is currently serving as the vice-chair of the National Consensus Commission. His recent publications include Charade: Bangladesh’s 2024 Election (2024), and Pathways of Autocratization: The Tumultuous Journey of Bangladeshi Politics (2023). He also co-authored How Autocrats Rise: Sequences of Democratic Backsliding (2023). Presented by the Liu Institute's South Asia Working Group and cosponsored with the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.Lunch Provided - Please Bring Beverages In support of the Liu Institute’s growing commitment to sustainability, we will no longer be offering drinks at our public lectures and panels. We encourage audience members to bring their water bottles or to drink from nearby water fountains.  Originally published at asia.nd.edu.

Please join the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and its Clingen Center for the Study of Modern Ireland for a lecture and public conversation with the Honorable Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States. This event will be the inaugural lecture that will launch the Keough-Naughton Institute's annual Jim Kelly Diplomacy Speaker Series.  On Wednesday, October 29, Ambassador Byrne Nason will deliver a public lecture that addresses Ireland’s foreign policy, Ireland-US relations and Ireland’s plans for marking the Irish dimensions of the 250th anniversary of foundation of the US. She will also be joined in conversation with the Honorable Claire Cronin, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. A reception will follow the event in the McKenna Hall auditorium gallery. About Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason assumed her role as Ireland’s 19th Ambassador to the United States in August 2022. Geraldine was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations in New York (2017–22). Previously, she served as Ambassador to France (2014–17), Second Secretary General in the Department of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) (2011–14), Ambassador and Ireland’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU (2005–11)), and Director of the National Forum on Europe (2004–05). During her career, Ambassador Byrne Nason has served in Brussels, New York, Paris, Vienna and Helsinki. As Second Secretary-General in the Department of the Taoiseach from 2011–14, she was the highest ranking female public servant in Ireland. During that period, she also was Secretary General of Ireland’s Economic Management Council. On her arrival in New York, Ambassador Byrne Nason led Ireland’s successful campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, and led the New York Security Council team for the 2021–22 term. Geraldine was Chair of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for 2018 and 2019. She has also co-chaired high-level political negotiations on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela and on the ‘Samoa pathway’ for Small Island Developing States. A native of County Louth, in 2020 Ambassador Byrne Nason was awarded the Freedom of Drogheda, the town’s highest honour and was the third woman to receive the award of its 35 recipients. In 2014, Geraldine was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s highest academic honour. Ambassador Byrne Nason holds an honorary doctorate of Law from Maynooth University as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in literature from Saint Patrick’s College in Maynooth (NUIM). Ambassador Byrne Nason is married and has one son. About the Jim Kelly Diplomacy Speaker Series Named in memory of Ireland’s former deputy permanent representative to the UN and ambassador to Canada, the Speaker Series will bring to Notre Dame members of the diplomatic corps of Ireland who have served in ambassadorial roles around the world. The late Ambassador Jim Kelly was serving as Ireland’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations on his untimely death in March 2022. Among other roles he had served as Ireland’s Ambassador to Canada from 2016 to 2020. Read more here: Statement by Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney on the passing of Ambassador Jim Kelly.    Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

On May 12, 2025, a group of 59 white South Africans arrived in the United States as refugees on a flight chartered by the U.S. government. The new arrivals, many of whom are Afrikaner descendants of Dutch settlers, were granted refugee status based on claims they faced racial discrimination and violence in South Africa. At the center of this situation is South Africa’s land restitution program, which is designed to return land, under certain conditions, to Black communities that were dispossessed during the country’s Apartheid era. John Eligon, the Johannesburg bureau chief for The New York Times, has covered this story from all angles — including the passage of South Africa’s Expropriation Act, reactions to the policy in different communities, the Trump administration’s creation of a special refugee program for South Africa’s racial minorities, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pushback against narratives amplified by President Trump, Elon Musk, and others. Eligon will share insights from his reporting during “Post-Apartheid? Restitution and Racial Fear in South Africa,” a public conversation moderated by Dory Mitros Durham, assistant dean for academic affairs and associate teaching professor in Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. About the speakerJohn Eligon has served as The New York Times’ Johannesburg bureau chief since 2021. In that role, he is responsible for covering countries in southern Africa. He writes about how big trends and phenomena — from climate change to political upheaval — influence and shape the lives of ordinary people across southern Africa. “My work seeks to upend easy assumptions and stereotypes about the region,” he says. “I strive to show readers a side of Africa they rarely see or hear about, like how the Apartheid-era townships have become a hub of nightlife for South Africa’s rising Black middle class, or how the Rugby World Cup unified a very divided South Africa.” Eligon’s career at The New York Times started in 2005 as a sports reporter. He has covered courts for the Metro section and was a correspondent for the National section based in Kansas City, Missouri. He spent most of his time on the National desk covering issues of race across the United States. He was The Times’ first reporter on the ground in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd, and wrote extensively about the national movement for racial justice that it sparked. Several years earlier, he helped to shepherd The Times’ coverage of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Eligon was born in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and grew up mainly in Florida and Michigan. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he earned degrees in journalism and German. Originally published at klau.nd.edu.

Learning Beyond the Classics: Voicing Intergenerational Trauma in Postwar Korea and Japan through Contemporary Cinema Directed by Hyun kyung Kim Not Rated, 84 minutesIn English and Korean with English subtitles Director Hyun kyung Kim scheduled to appear live! This documentary explores the lasting impact of the Korean War while revealing the weight it still exerts to this day on several generations of the filmmaker's family. South Korean filmmaker Hyun kyung Kim grew up with the inherited burden of the Korean War, a conflict that left an indelible mark on her family and country. Her mother compulsively fills the house with items she finds on the streets of Seoul while her veteran father devours books about the war. The filmmaker's encounter with a North Korean defector mirrors the story of her grandfather, who likely stayed in the North when the country became divided, never to be seen again by his family. Defectors confronts the impact of a brutal war on several generations of the filmmaker's family. GET TICKETS *Free for ND, SMC, HC, and IUSB students. **Co-presented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship/Hesburgh Libraries.

Please join the Keough-Naughton Institute for a talk by Gareth Prendergast, colonel and head of Strategic Force Design in the Irish Defence Forces, on his new book Clear - Hold - Build: How the Free State Won the Irish Civil War (Eastwood Publications, 2025). Copies of the book will be available for purchase after the reading. About Clear - Hold - BuildResearching a civil war is always fraught with danger. While writing a historical textbook 50 years after the end of hostilities, F.S.L. Lyons referred to the Irish Civil War as “burned so deep into the heart and mind of Ireland that it is not yet possible for the historian to approach it with the detailed knowledge or the objectivity which it deserves." Pushing to one side the ideological differences still prevalent in Ireland, Clear - Hold - Build: How the Free State Won the Irish Civil War by Gareth Prendergast, now explains the construct behind the Free State Strategy during the Irish Civil War. As a serving officer in the Irish Defence Forces and a former graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College, Prendergast utilises his academic and military experience to offer a unique perspective of this contentious period in Irish history. In this newly published book, Prendergast analyses the Clearance and Hold operations conducted by the Leadership of the National Army in order to face down a violent insurgency primarily based in the ‘Munster Republic.’ He credits the Build or Rebuild operations conducted by the Free State as the main contributory reason why the National Army ultimately won the civil war. Even the words ‘won the civil war’ are contentious to this day. Using the lens of modern counterinsurgency doctrine to connect tactical actions to strategic success, Prendergast presents readers with a nuanced examination of the conflict and invites them to draw their own conclusions. You can listen to Gareth Prendergast discuss Clear - Hold - Build on the Irish History Show Podcast here. About Gareth Prendergast Gareth Prendergast is a serving colonel in the Irish Defence Forces with over 30 years of service. He has seven operational tours of duty overseas including the Middle East, Balkans and Mali. At home he has served in infantry battalions on the Irish border during the ‘Troubles’, in Kilkenny and Dublin. He has also served in the Military College and Defence Force Headquarter on numerous occasions, including appointments in the Command and Staff School, OIC Military Finance Branch, and Director of Logistics. He is currently serving as Head of Strategic Force Design. Prendergast has a Masters of Military Art and Science from his year spent on the US Army Command and General Staff Course in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and he recently achieved his doctorate (Ph.D.) after six years study and research in the history department of UCC. Colonel Prendergast recently published his first book, Clear – Hold – Build, How the Free State won the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) with Eastwood Publications in 2025. This book encompasses his previous experiences and military education as he spent over six years researching how the newly established Irish National Army utilised a counterinsurgency doctrine that allowed them to convert tactical victories into overall strategic success. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

Learning Beyond the Classics: Voicing Intergenerational Trauma in Postwar Korea and Japan through Contemporary Cinema Directed by Nagisa OshimaWith Kei Sato, Fumio Watanabe, Toshio Ishido Not Rated, 118 minutesIn Japanese with English subtitles Genius provocateur Nagisa Oshima, an influential figure in the Japanese New Wave of the 1960s, made one of his most startling political statements with the compelling pitch-black satire Death by Hanging. In this macabre farce, a Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next. At once disturbing and oddly amusing, Oshima's constantly surprising film is a subversive and surreal indictment of both capital punishment and the treatment of Korean immigrants in his country. GET TICKETS *Free for ND, SMC, HC, and IUSB students. **Co-presented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship/Hesburgh Libraries.

Learning Beyond the Classics: Voicing Intergenerational Trauma in Postwar Korea and Japan through Contemporary Cinema Directed by Park Chan-wook With Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo Rated R, 145 minutesIn Korean and Japanese with English subtitles A celebrated director with a multifaceted body of work (e.g., Oldboy, Stoker, and Decision to Leave), Park Chan-wook took a big swing a decade ago when adapting Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and moving its original Victorian-era Britain setting to 1930s Korea when under Japanese rule. The bones, though, remain in place: A young woman is hired as a handmaiden to a reclusive Japanese heiress living on a vast estate in the countryside. Proving good help is hard to find, the handmaiden has an ulterior motive as she is working with a con artist, himself posing as a Japanese aristocrat, to seduce the heiress and empty her bank account. GET TICKETS *Free for ND, SMC, HC, and IUSB students. **Co-presented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship/Hesburgh Libraries.