Event Detail

The Keough-Naughton Institute invites you to a staged reading of The Invasion of Melos, an adaptation of Thucydides' Melian Dialogue, by visiting playwright Colin Murphy. A panel discussion and reception will follow the reading.Play Description When is war "just"? Are there laws of war? Who will hold belligerents to account? Is geopolitics only about self-interest and the survival of the fittest? What does it mean to be a “realist”? These questions are not new: one of the first people to document them was the Greek historian Thucydides, in his influential History of the Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War was a long-running war between Athens and Sparta. In 416BC, Athens opened a new front in that war, when it invaded the vulnerable island of Melos. That led to “peace” negotiations between Athens and Melos, and Thucydides documented these in a chapter of his History known as the Melian Dialogue. We present a rehearsed reading of a new adaptation of the Melian dialogue, by one of Ireland’s leading political dramatists, Colin Murphy, with the aim of provoking reflection on today’s conflicts. The staged reading is directed by Notre Dame Professor Kevin Dreyer and features a cast of Notre Dame students. The short performance will be followed by an expert panel discussion on conflict and the ethics of war with Colin Murphy, Professor Michael Desch (ND International Security Center) and Professor Anne García-Romero (Film, Television, and Theatre). The original production was presented in Dublin in 2024 by ClassicsNow in association with Once Off Productions. Playwright BiographyColin Murphy is a playwright, screenwriter and journalist from Dublin, Ireland, best known for his series of plays about Irish political history. His new play, The United States vs Ulysses, will run at the Irish Arts Center in New York this May. Other plays include The Asylum Workshop, The Treaty and Guaranteed!, all published by Bloomsbury. His radio plays include #Antigone and Hamlet, Prince of Derry. Screenplays include The Guarantee. He writes a weekly column for the Sunday Independent. Director BiographyKevin Dreyer is a Professor of Theatre in Notre Dame's Film, Television, and Theatre Department. He is an experienced lighting designer and a member of the United Scenic Artists with an active freelance career. He has designed for major companies across the United States and around the world with reviews and award nominations from four continents. He has been on the faculty at Notre Dame since 1989, where in addition to teaching he has designed lighting and scenery for the theatre season. In recent years he has added the responsibilities of producing and directing for the University. He published the first book about lighting design for dance in 2020. Kevin's work as a lighting designer has been seen in Chicago and around the world with the Joffrey Ballet and Ballet West. His design work is featured in Robert Altman’s film The Company. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

Mar 3

3:30 PM

Art History Works-in-Progress Series: "Image as Immersive Evidence: Andrew of Crete’s Ritual Engagement with the Dormition Icon and the Construction of Historicity"

The Department of Art, Art History, and Design invites you for a lecture by Lucas Lynn Christensen, doctoral candidate in the Department of Theology, exploring the relationship between visual art, history, and ritual through Andrew of Crete’s engagement with the Dormition icon. His research examines how visual elements serve as historical evidence, blurring the boundaries between imagery, ritual, and sacred truth. In a series of early eighth-century homilies, Andrew of Crete explicitly references the detailed imagery of the Dormition icon, transforming visual elements into persuasive evidence for the historical events it commemorates. This lecture explores how Andrew deploys the icon’s details as an epistemological resource—a visual argument that invites his audience to actively participate in completing the narrative. For listeners encountering the celebration for the first time, the icon serves not only as a testimonial object but also as an open-ended canvas. By interweaving vivid recollections of his own experiences in Jerusalem with calls for mimetic ritual participation, Andrew positions his hearers within the very frame of the icon, thereby blurring the boundaries between art, lived ritual, and historical truth. This investigation reconsiders the role of visual representation in constructing and authenticating sacred history, revealing how immersive engagement with an image can function as a dynamic form of historical evidence. Originally published at artdept.nd.edu.

Mar 3

4:00 PM

Lecture: "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza"

Wrestling with the fallout of the war in Gaza on Jewish identity, political commentator Peter Beinart shares his personal reckoning with the moral reconstruction needed to build a future "that recognizes the infinite value of all human life." Atalia Omer, professor of religion, conflict and peace studies, will moderate. A frequent contributor to The New York Times and an MSNBC analyst, Beinart is a professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He is also the editor at large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter. Note: Bags and backpacks will not be allowed inside the venue. A storage space will be provided on site. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu. This event is co-sponsored by Contending Modernities, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Mirza Family Professor in Islamic Thought & Muslim Societies.

Mar 4

12:30 PM

Lecture—"Infrastructures of Exclusion: Authority and Everyday Politics in Urban Uganda, 1945-1972"

Edgar TaylorKellogg Institute Visiting FellowLecturer in the Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Makerere University This book project charts the entangled fates of racial populism and electoral democracy in the public life of Uganda’s urban centers between the developmental colonialism of the late 1940s through the economic dependency and stagnation of the 1970s. It uses previously inaccessible archives, historical newspapers and interviews to illuminate how urban populism was informed by deep historical conversations over authority and reciprocal obligation among elites and commoners anchored in a Luganda conceptual vocabulary. The project also shows how activists inhabited changing infrastructures — of media, urban commerce, residential segregation, and legal paternalism — to uphold and subvert democratic ideals. The book will be anchored in African social history but will contribute to debates over democracy and racial populism in the wake of colonial violence among political historians and anthropologists of the state. More information here

Mar 4

2:00 PM

Conversation: "Does the political context matter for disaster impacts?"

The impacts of extreme climate and weather events pose a greater threat to communities in politically fragile settings. Join Halvard Buhaug, research director and research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), for a conversation focused on the importance of investing in peace, justice, and strong institutions for mitigating risk and successfully adapting to a changing climate. Register to Attend via Zoom About the Speaker Halvard Buhaug Research Director and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO); Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); and Associate Editor of the Journal of Peace Research Much of his research concerns security dimensions of climate change, which has received funding from the European Union, the World Bank, the US Department of Defense, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Research Council of Norway. He is the recipient of the 2015 Karl Deutsch Award; principal investigator for two ERC projects (Consolidator Grant 2015-2021; Advanced Grant 2022-), and chapter Lead Author in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2022). Originally published at pulte.nd.edu.

Mar 5

12:30 PM

Lecture—"Freedom’s Liberator: Taras Shevchenko and the Making of Modern Ukraine"

The roots of modern Ukraine are the rhythms and rhymes of Taras Shevchenko (1814-61). His innovative poetry has long been Ukraine’s source code, a cultural algorithm in pursuit of personal, national, and universal human freedom. Today it helps fuel widespread grassroots resistance against a Russian war of aggression and conquest that threatens all of Europe. In this lecture, Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, places Shevchenko’s work in the context of a long Ukrainian anticolonial struggle against Russian imperialism. Through close readings, he examines Shevchenko’s fierce “solidarity with the subaltern” and explores coded mysteries in his painting and poetry, where freedom is depicted as buried and entombed, awaiting rescue. All are welcome to this public lecture. Lunch will be available beginning at 12:00 p.m., while supplies last. About the speakerRory Finnin (Photo by Peter Ringenberg/University of Notre Dame).Rory Finnin is professor of Ukrainian studies at the University of Cambridge. He launched the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program in 2008. Finnin’s primary research interest is the interplay of culture and identity in Ukraine. His broader research interests include nationalism studies, solidarity studies, and cultural memory in the region of the Black Sea. Finnin is a graduate of St Ignatius High School (Cleveland), Georgetown University (B.A.), and Columbia University (Ph.D.). From 1995-97 he served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. In 2024, he received the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies for his book Blood of Others: Stalin's Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto Press, 2022). Finnin will also be featured in the Ukrainian Studies Hub conference "Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine," March 6-8, 2025. He will join Archbishop Borys Gudziak during the opening keynote session. Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

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Staged Reading and Discussion: "The Invasion of Melos" by Colin Murphy

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