Open to participants across the world, the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (MCAA) is an annual conference bringing together scholars of Asian studies from the US Midwest Region (North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin). The MCAA seeks to promote Asian Studies at the university, secondary, and primary levels. Our mission is to encourage scholarly interchange between Asianists in the American Midwest with colleagues from other parts of the US and around the world. The Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, is pleased to host the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (MCAA), September 13 to 15, 2024. For additional information on registration, accommodations, and programming, visit the conference website at mcaaconference.nd.edu. Originally published at asia.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. 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.

Each day brings new dramatic news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukrainian defense measures and counterattacks. Gathering expert panelists from both the University of Notre Dame and Ukraine, this flash panel will assess the situation in Ukraine from different perspectives. The Nanovic Institute for European Studies will host it on September 16, 2024. In August 2024, Ukraine broke through Russian border defense and occupied Russian territory. F-16 fighter jets arrived in the country. Russian aggression seemed to increase with massive air strikes. On August 24, Ukraine’s president Zelensky signed a controversial law banning Russia-linked religious groups with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as the main target – a move criticized by Pope Francis the following day. There are also discussions of peace plans following a “Summit on Peace in Ukraine” in Switzerland in June. What is the situation in the country now (September 2024)? What are the main developments over the summer of 2024? How can we assess the position Ukraine finds itself in? Where is the country heading? What are the expectations for fall and winter in Ukraine? In this 60-minute flash panel, we want to shed light on these questions. Register to AttendPanelistsVolodymyr TurchynovskyyDean of the Social Sciences FacultyUkrainian Catholic UniversityMary Ellen O'ConnellRobert & Marion Short Professor of LawProfessor of International Peace Studies—Kroc InstituteUniversity of Notre DameTaras ZhovtenkoActing Executive DirectorIlko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives FoundationAssociate Professor and Project Lead on Security Studies ProgramUkrainian Catholic UniversityOlha VorozhbytDeputy Editor-in-ChiefUkrayinskyi Tyzhden (Ukrainian Week)Foreign Policy CouncilUkrainian PrismAffiliated expert of the Global Outreach ProgramModerated by Clemens Sedmak, director of the Nanovic Institute and professor of social ethics at the Keough School of Global Affairs.   Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

Join the Liturgical Choir of the Notre Dame Children's Choir the second and third Mondays of the month in-person or online for a prayerful Vespers service.  https://youtube.com/live/WjGCPONoGuQ?feature=shareNotre Dame Children's Liturgical ChoirOriginally published at sma.nd.edu.

Finnish American composer Ilari Kaila and Prof. Patrick Yim perform and discuss Kaila's Solitude for solo violin and other works. Notre Dame Professor David Bird will moderate a discussion with Yim and Kaila. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

Please join the Kellogg Institute in its annual tradition — this year in a new format! — that introduces research of its new Visiting Fellows in an informative and inviting atmosphere. Learn firsthand why Kellogg has invested in the work of these fellows from brief research overview presentations then delve deeper during a Q&A session, moderated by Kellogg Director Aníbal Pérez-Liñán. A light lunch will be available in this first session of a three-part series. Session 1Marianne Kneuer, Professor of Comparative Politics and Director of the Institute of Political Science at the Dresden University of TechnologySandra Botero, Associate Professor in the Facultad de Estudios Internacionales, Políticos y Urbanos at the Universidad del RosarioJuan Chamorro, Nicaraguan Economist,Businessman, and PoliticianFor more information, click here.  Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Lasting peace in Colombia requires understanding and addressing the different and disproportionate impacts of the armed conflict on ethnic peoples and communities. Now that Colombia is at the halfway point in implementing its peace accord, it is clear there are serious challenges in achieving the goals established to guarantee the rights of ethnic peoples in the peace process. As part of this event, the Kroc Institute is launching its third special report on the implementation of the Colombian Final Accord’s Ethnic Approach. The report seeks to understand the limitations and weaknesses, as well as progress and successes, of implementing Ethnic Approach’s commitments. Based on quantitative and qualitative findings, the report offers recommendations that can guide the second half of the implementation period for the Ethnic Approach to experience accelerated implementation. Event speakers will provide an overview of the report findings and open space to discuss lessons learned and best practices for inclusive peacebuilding. Additionally, opening remarks and closing reflections from the international community supporting the accompaniment of the Ethnic Approach will provide insights on the critical next steps for guaranteeing Colombia’s ethnic communities stay at the center of the peace process.   Opening Remarks: H.E. Mr. Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo, Ambassador of Colombia in the United States  Panelists: Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, professor of the practice and director of the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM)  Anne A. Witkowsky, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, U.S. Department of State  Ángela María Ramírez Rincón, executive director of the Barometer Initiative in ColombiaIvonne Zúñiga, researcher for the Barometer Initiative in ColombiaGimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)María Claudia Pulido, Assistant Executive Secretary for the Monitoring, Promotion and Technical Cooperation, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Helmer Quiñones, researcher, Accountability Research Center, American University School of International Service       Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

This workshop will cover how Generative AI works, explore models, chatbots, and companies in the consumer space, explain key terms (including model, LLM, training, hallucination, bias, context, and RAG), delve into AI capabilities, and discuss how your data is used in Generative AI. Click HERE to register Originally published at ai.nd.edu.

Join the Robinson Community Learning Center and the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion in a service activity intended to honor the legacy of those who lost their lives and those who responded heroically to the events of September 11, 2001. Together we will build four cedar flower boxes as a gift to the homeowners of the new Habitat for Humanity homes constructed in the Near Northwest Neighborhood as part of the inauguration events celebrating the inauguration of the Rev. Robert A. Dowd, CSC as the University of Notre Dame's 18th President. In addition to commemorating the events of September 11, we know that shared opportunities to collectively engage in service and share meals together nutures dialogue, cooperation, and civic engagement. We hope this event will continue to build upon the multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-generational, and multi-faith community already established at the Robinson Community Learning Center through its preschool and English classes and carry that forth into the broader community. Bringing out the best in America, this event wil embody the motto on the Great Seal of the United States of America, E Pluribus Unum, "out of many, one." A light meal will be provided. RSVP here. This event is sponsored by the Robinson Community Learning Center, the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, the United Religious Community, and the University of Notre Dame's Department of Art, Art History, and Design through a grant from the AmeriCorps State program overseen by Serve Indiana. Originally published at ansari.nd.edu.

Registration deadline extended! Register by noon Monday, September 8! To attend this in-person event on September 18, PLEASE REGISTER at https://bit.ly/ActionReg so we can get a count for ordering food!    In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis “urgently appeals” for a “new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.” We, the Notre Dame Minor in Sustainability and the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, invite you to enter into that dialogue by forming a team from your campus organization or local parish to participate in the two-part workshop, The Pathway to Ecological Citizenship and Spirituality, organized by the Catholic Climate Covenant and the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. Part One of the Workshop is an online Webinar on September 11 that addresses the spiritual message of Laudato Si’. Part Two of the workshop is an in-person event on September 18 at Notre Dame that will be the live origination site for a national webinar focused on climate change and how your organization or parish can become involved in the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.  6:00 PM        Gathering reception with heavy hors 'd'oeuvres   6:30 PM         Begin live Webinar feed   Welcome by Rev. Emmett Farrell, founder of Creation Care, Diocese of San Diego.   Opening prayer by Rev. Stephen P. Newton, C.S.C., executive director, AUSCP.   “A Scientific Perspective of Our Climate Crisis” by Philip Sakimoto, director of the Minor in Sustainability and Professor of the Practice in Physics and Astronomy, University of Notre Dame   “A Primer on the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform and Planning” by Notre Dame alumna Christina Bagaglio Slentz, Director of Creation Care, Diocese of San Diego.   8:00 PM         Conversation and Dessert ReceptionParticipants coming by private car may drop off passengers at the McKenna Center and then drive across the street to the Morris Inn to obtain a parking pass and instructions on where to self-park. If you cannot come to Notre Dame, you may view the program part of the September 18 Part Two event online. For this, and to view the September 11 Part One Webinar online, register at https://bit.ly/ccc_AUSCP_EcologicalPathwayFor information about the Laudato Si’ Action Platform please visit:            https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/               https://godsplanet.us/              https://laudatosiuniversities.com/              https://www.ncronline.org/feature-series/laudato-si-action-platform/storiesIf you have any questions about this event, contact Phil Sakimoto, director of the Notre Dame Minor in Sustainability, at psakimot@nd.edu. Sponsored by the Minor in Sustainability, Office of Sustainability, Catholic Climate Covenant, Association of U. S. Catholic Priests, and Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.  Originally published at susminor.nd.edu.

The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, in partnership with its Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Working Group, as part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, proudly offer a four-part lecture series over the 2024-25 academic year. The series focuses on U.S. imperialism and U.S. military and humanitarian involvement in the Middle East, and in particular Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Graduate students serve as discussants after each lecture, prior to Q&A with the audience. The series conducts a critical evaluation of U.S. policy in the Middle East and calls for a reassessment of the nature and function of a U.S. presence, and the implications posed for peacebuilding practitioners and contemporary global affairs scholarship. Though the US-led “war on terror” has been ongoing for over two decades, it is a war that has been waged largely in the shadows—in the concealed spaces of black sites, extraordinary renditions, covert drone programs, secret global surveillance, and through expanding terrorism laws and security databases. This talk tracks a little-known but ever-expanding dimension of US counterterrorism warfare, one that travels in and through a growing body of US counterterrorism law and sanctions regimes that tether to foreign aid flows and monetary transactions around the world. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Palestine, this talk traces how US counterterrorism law bundles and embeds in humanitarian and development aid flows inbound to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, transporting, in turn, Washington’s counterterrorism regime into the intimate spaces and interstices of Palestinian everyday life—in a greenhouse in Gaza, in a library in Bethlehem, in the collection of personal information and mapping of land plots, in the halls of municipal councils, and in local elections. Tracing the transnational operation of US law, this talk demonstrates how US empire operates as a topological formation that projects security and war power through opaque arrangements and blended genres of rule—in this case contracted relationships of aid—that render Washington’s counterterrorism regime intimately embedded in the lifeworlds of those afar. More broadly, it suggests that a close analysis of the topological workings of the US security state in Palestine tells us something significant about the shape-shifting nature of imperial formations, their realignments and reformulations, their haunted sites, and their obscured but intimate forms. Speakers:Lisa Bhungalia is a political geographer researching late-modern war, law, empire, and transnational linkages between the US and Southwest Asian and North African region and an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first book, Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine, published by Stanford University Press in December 2023, examines the entanglements of aid, law, and war in Palestine with attention to policing and surveillance regimes produced through the embedding of counterterrorism laws and infrastructures into civilian aid flows. She is also developing new research on the social lives of terrorism databases. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, National Science Foundation, and Palestinian American Research Center, among other bodies, and her published work has appeared in Politics and Space, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Society and Space, Environment and Planning A, Middle East Report, and Jadaliyya, among other venues.Student respondent: Francesca Freeman, Peace Studies and HistoryFaculty respondent: Perin Gürel, Associate Professor American StudiesOriginally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Kellogg Work-in-Progress seminars are designed to generate in-depth discussion of new scholarly work. For the pre-circulated paper and to attend, register here.  Kelly McMannKellogg Institute Visiting FellowLucy Adams Leffingwell Professor, Case Western Reserve University When are democracies, or other regime types, more successful at mitigating problems? Examining numerous economic, environmental, health, and security problems and guided by an initial theoretical framework, this project will provide an answer to the question. For mor information, click here. 

Get ready for a micro-festival full of free concerts, dancing, free food trucks and giveaways, and special celebratory moments. Featuring performances by Jerry O'Fonics, DJ Chuck Fry, and Brollision, this night commemorates you in thanks for all the support South Bend has shown DPAC since the center opened in 2004. It's our 20th birthday party, but you're the special guests! Bring your boogie shoes and enjoy fun activities until twilight on DPAC's Terrace and walkways at this all-ages event. RSVP  

Alexandra Razskazoff, the 2022 Met Opera Laffont Competition Grand Finals winner, and Dror Baitel, Notre Dame Opera music director, join forces in a vibrant program spanning Baroque to the 20th century, including works by Handel, Strauss, and Britten. This concert is free and open to the public.  To watch a livestream. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

NDIGI is delighted to welcome Vinayak Nikam, director and biotech investor at Paradigm BioCapital Advisors, and Colleen Nikam '08, investment advisor at Goldman Sachs, to Notre Dame! Colleen and Vinayak will engage in a fireside chat to teach us about the current landscape of biotech investing, the investment advisory business, and the many paths you can take to find a fulfilling career in financial services. Food from Einstein's Bagel Co. will be provided! Please let us know if you’ll be attending by filling out this short Google Form.   Originally published at ndigi.nd.edu.

The International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations in 1981, provides an opportunity for the Notre Dame community to come together to pray for peace. This year’s theme is Cultivating a Culture of Peace. What can we do to create peace in the world? Join University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., at the Our Lady of the Lake World Peace Plaza (next to St. Mary's Lake, across the street from the Grotto) for a prayer service to celebrate the International Day of Peace.  Originally published at pulte.nd.edu.

Leo Varadkar, former Taoiseach of Ireland (2017-2020, 2022-24) and current member of parliament in Dáil Eireann, will join the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies for a public discussion of Irish current affairs, including public health initiatives, civic life, and the political future of the island of Ireland. Varadkar will be in conversation with Colin Barr, professor of modern Irish history and director of the Clingen Family Center for Study of Modern Ireland. About the Speaker Leo Varadkar was Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland from 2017-2020 and again from 2022-24. He served in cabinet for 13 years in the Ministries of Transport, Tourism & Sport, Enterprise, Trade, Employment, and Social Protection and Health. He is currently Teachta Dála for the Dublin West constituency and a member of Ireland's Council of State. Varadkar helped guide Ireland through the Pandemic with public health and economic responses that were internationally recognized for their efficacy. He led Ireland through Brexit, preventing a hard border between North and South, upholding the Good Friday Agreement, and maintaining Ireland's place at the heart of the European Union and its single market. A strong supporter of Irish unification, Varadkar allocated over €1 billion to North-South projects under the Shared Island Fund and helped to get the power-sharing institutions of the Good Friday Agreement operating again. As Taoiseach, Varadkar established a Child Poverty and Well-being Programme, early results of which include the introduction of free school books, hot school meals, and lower childcare fees for working parents. Varadkar also doubled spending on the arts, culture, and sport as well as significantly enhanced workers’ rights. His government introduced paid parental leave and statutory sick pay and made major progress towards a living wage and occupational pensions for workers. During Varadkar’s premiership, greenhouse gas emissions reached a 30-year low on foot of a new climate law, which included major investment in renewable energy production as well as a carbon tax with revenues ring-fenced for climate initiatives like subsidized home retrofits and greener farming. At the time of Varadkar leaving office, Ireland had record levels of employment and a budget surplus that allowed for increased investment in public infrastructure, such as new public housing, schools, and healthcare facilities. Varadkar is a medical doctor and a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. He lives with his partner Dr. Matthew Barrett in Dublin. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

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 Liturgical Choir of the Notre Dame Children's Choir the second and third Mondays of the month in-person or online for a prayerful Vespers service.  https://youtube.com/live/b2NY2EKdSio?feature=shareNotre Dame Children's Liturgical ChoirOriginally published at sma.nd.edu.

Join the Klau Institute and NDVotes for this installment of "Pizza, Pop, and Politics" as Professor of Law Derek Muller discusses voting rights and election administration. Originally published at klau.nd.edu.