Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here,” will speak at the University in an event hosted by the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights. Drawing on his work as a journalist, Blitzer will discuss how immigration became a political crisis. “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis” is an epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported book about the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border. Blitzer tells this history through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate. The book has received widespread praise and was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New York Times and several other publications. The event is free and open to the public. A reception with book sales and a book signing will follow the lecture. Blitzer’s lecture ties in with the Klau Institute’s Migration Initiative, which launched last year through collaboration with other experts from across the Keough School of Global Affairs and the University as a whole. This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies, the Institute for Social Concerns, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy. Originally published at klau.nd.edu.

Join the Institute for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons for Encounter: lectures by distinguished scholars in the field of Catholic social teaching, who will share their insights and provide critical conversation on matters of justice and the common good.  Reception to follow. Marcus Mescher is an associate professor of Christian ethics. He holds a Ph.D. from Boston College and specializes in Catholic social teaching and moral formation. His research and writing concentrate in the following areas: human dignity and rights; social/environmental justice for the global common good; how moral agency is impacted by cultural context and digital technology; the moral dimensions of friendship; sexual justice and the ethics of marriage and family life; liberation theology and inclusive solidarity; healing the psychological, spiritual, social, and moral harm caused by clergy abuse. Dr. Mescher has written dozens of popular and academic articles; he has published essays in the Journal of Moral Theology, the Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Jesuit Higher Education, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is the author of The Ethics of Encounter: Christian Neighbor Love as a Practice of Solidarity (Orbis, 2020) and Fratelli Tutti Study Guide (Paulist, 2021). His current research and writing focus on mental health and moral injury.

The Institute for Social Concerns presents the 2025 Poverty Studies Distinguished Lecture with Andrea Elliott. Reception and book signing to follow. socialconcerns.nd.edu/elliott Andrea Elliott is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has documented the lives of poor Americans, Muslim immigrants and other people on the margins of power. She is an investigative reporter for The New York Times and the author of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor. In the shadows of this new Gilded Age, Dasani must lead her seven siblings through a thicket of problems: hunger, parental drug addiction, violence, housing instability, segregated schools, and the constant monitoring of the child-protection system. When, at age thirteen, Dasani enrolls at a boarding school in Pennsylvania, her loyalties are tested like never before. As she learns to “code switch” between the culture she left behind and the norms of her new town, Dasani starts to feel like a stranger in both places. Ultimately, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning the family you love?

Learn more and register here Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025   This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?

Learn more and register here 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025 This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?

Learn more and register here 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025 This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?

In presenting this vision, our approach will be twofold: to reflect upon the past and to revitalize the present, to celebrate the feminine genealogy of the faith and to amplify the prophetic mission of women in our current moment. By illuminating the riches of the faith and reading the signs of the times, we hope to equip faithful Catholics and formators with a robust foundation for understanding and articulating the Church’s vision for women in our time. Register Here Originally published at mcgrath.nd.edu.

In presenting this vision, our approach will be twofold: to reflect upon the past and to revitalize the present, to celebrate the feminine genealogy of the faith and to amplify the prophetic mission of women in our current moment. By illuminating the riches of the faith and reading the signs of the times, we hope to equip faithful Catholics and formators with a robust foundation for understanding and articulating the Church’s vision for women in our time. Register Here Originally published at mcgrath.nd.edu.

In presenting this vision, our approach will be twofold: to reflect upon the past and to revitalize the present, to celebrate the feminine genealogy of the faith and to amplify the prophetic mission of women in our current moment. By illuminating the riches of the faith and reading the signs of the times, we hope to equip faithful Catholics and formators with a robust foundation for understanding and articulating the Church’s vision for women in our time. Register Here Originally published at mcgrath.nd.edu.

A symphonic concert featuring the Songs of Harriet Tubman and Louise Farrenc's Third Symphony, presented in Women's History Month. Faculty conductor Cynthia Katsarelis (in the Program in Sacred Music at Notre Dame) leads a collaboration with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, and our invited guest, South African soprano Goitsemang Lehobye, in presenting the Songs of Harriet Tubman by American composer, Nkeiru Okoye, and the Third Symphony by the 19th-Century French composer, Louise Farrenc.Harriet Tubman is the quintessential liberation figure in American history. Her courage and activism has inspired many, including the civic leaders in South Bend who brought a beautiful statue of Harriet Tubman to Howard Park. Louise Farrenc was a virtuoso pianist and composer and the first women to serve full-time on the faculty of the Paris Conservatoire. Famously, she fought for, and attained, equal pay with her male colleagues.The pre-concert conversation at 6:30 p.m. will focus on the meaning of Tubman for South Bend, a "station" on the Underground Railroad. Participants will include Alfred Guillaume, retired from IUSB, a civic leader who helped bring the inspiring Harriet Tubman statue to Howard Park.Nkeiru Okoye is one of the most exciting composers in America. Her works include operas, oratorios, music for orchestras, choruses, and chamber music ensembles, as well as song cycles. Her recent oratorio, When the Caged Bird Sings, premiered in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2024 to great acclaim.Soprano Goitsemang Lehobye, a native of Ga-Rankuwa, South Africa, is an emerging star who in the last year has performed with the Finnish National Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, and made her Carnegie Hall debut. Tickets are available at: performingarts.nd.edu Co-sponsorsed by the Program in Sacred Music at Notre Dame, Gender Studies, and the Department of MusicThis concert is made possible in part by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame.

Register here Deondra Rose is associate professor of public policy, political science, and history at Duke University. We will discuss Rose’s recent book The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy, and lessons we can learn from HBCUs about cultivating character for the common good. There will be 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. virtuesvocations.org