The Notre Dame Latin American and Latino Young Scholars Conference, set for Thursday and Friday, Oct. 9-10, aims to create community among interdisciplinary Notre Dame scholars, both those who identify as Latin American and/or Latino, together with those whose research focuses on Latin America and Latino Studies. Hosted by the Latin American Students Unidos (LASU), the event is open to all graduate students and postdocs. Come and listen to peers present their research to a dynamic and interdisciplinary community, and connect with scholars who share similar interests. For more information, contact: LATGRAD@ND.EDU. To register, visit: https://forms.gle/iacTTtfaqhnKdYMs9 Review the conference agenda.Thursday, October 9Alumni Panel & Reception4:00 pm Hesburgh Center for International StudiesRuth Solatre-Hensgen (PhD, Spanish, 2022), Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Cultures, St. Mary's College, Notre Dame Noe Pliego Campos(PhD, History 2023), Byron K. Trippet Assistant Professor of History, Wabash College Karla Adriana González Serrano (PhD, Electrical Engineering, 2022), Postdoctoral Researcher in Biomedical & Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame Xóchitl Bada (PhD, Sociology, 2008), Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois, Chicago Pablo Forni (PhD, Sociology, 2000), Director of the Institute for Social Science Research; Professor of Sociology, Universidad del Salvador (USAL)The conference is hosted by the LASU) in collaboration with various campus partners like the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Amit Prasad is an associate professor in the School of History & Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He specializes in global, transnational, and postcolonial sociology and history of science, technology, and medicine. His research focuses on the history of the present — in particular, how history of colonialism continues to impact present day norms, values, and practices. His goal has been to excavate the complex and often contradictory entanglements of colonial tropes, ideologies, etc. with emergent knowledges and practices of science, technology, and medicine. Prasad also explores the visual culture of medicine, in particular its shift with the emergence of technologies such as MRI, issues of priority and invention, and scientific misinformation . He has also published on biopolitics of overseas drug trials and medical transcription and engaged with the role of history of science in films. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, American Institute of Indian Studies, among others and he has published in a number of journals, including Social Studies of Science, Science, Technology & Human Values, Theory, Culture, and Society, Cultural Geographies, Technology & Culture. His first book, Imperial Technoscience: Entangled Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India (MIT Press, 2014), through a study of connected histories of MRI in the US, the UK, and India, investigated how the invention, industrial production, as well as cultures of MRI were entangled within colonial, West-centric, and Orientalist discourses. His second book, Science Studies Meets Colonialism (Polity, 2022), investigates how colonial tropes, norms, ideologies, etc. continue to animate the present, including in the fields of history of science and science and technology studies (STS). Drawing on an ethnographic study of a stem cell clinic, he is writing his third book that is tentatively titled Miracle or Science: Scientific Uncertainty, Contested Ethics, and Global Melange in a Stem Cell Laboratory. He is an editor of the journal Science, Technology and Society (Sage). He is also an avid collector of Indian art - medieval miniatures and modern and contemporary paintings and etchings. He is particularly interested in postcolonial cosmopolitanism of Indian art/artists. Prasad's lecture is sponsored by the Liu Institute's South Asia Group and Health, Humanities and Society, Reilly Center for Science Technology and Values.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 a poetry reading by Luke Morgan, recipient of the 2025 Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. Luke Morgan will be reading from his new collection Blood Atlas (Arlen House, 2025). Copies of his books will be available for sale after the reading. About Blood Atlas Familial connection is at the heart of Luke Morgan’s eagerly-awaited third collection, Blood Atlas. More structured than his previous works, he navigates his lineage in the form of the villanelle, sonnet, ghazal and pantoum, seeking to make sense of his personal history. These stories are mapped with a cartographer’s eye, finding connections with ancestors such as Field Marshal Montgomery and the English physicist, James Prescott Joule. Full of striking images and timeless truths, each finely-wrought poem is ‘... an open wound’. The collection culminates in a sequence of ten sonnets which explore the lesser-known senses, whether detecting the passing of time in ‘Chronoception’ or the awareness of the body in space in ‘Proprioception’. Blood Atlas demonstrates the mature reach of a poet whose skill and memory work synergistically, creating a body of work that, like his family legacy, will endure. About Luke Morgan Luke Morgan is the recipient of the O'Shaughnessy Award 2025. Blood Atlas, his eagerly awaited third collection, from Arlen House, was completed with the assistance of a bursary from The Arts Council | An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Morgan is also the author of the poetry collections Beast (Arlen House, 2022) and Honest Walls (Arlen House, 2016). In addition to his work as a poet, Luke is also part of an award-winning filmmaker duo Morgan Brothers with the composer Jake Morgan. He lives and works in Galway, Ireland.  Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

Join the Institute for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons on select 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! For the weekend of the NC State game, we welcome Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive. Introduction by Paul Blaschko, director, Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society; assistant teaching professor of philosophy. Co-sponsored by the Department of Theology and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, exploring how we can build spiritual core strength for an unstable age. She is also the host of The Sacred podcast, interviewing those who shape our common life about their deepest values. She is an experienced broadcaster, writer and lecturer on themes related to public ethics, spirituality, wisdom and our common life, including on the BBC and in The Times, FT, The Economist, Prospect, and UnHerd, among others. For ten years she was director of Theos, the UK’s leading religion and society think tank, building a healthy and human team culture alongside a commitment to excellence. She is the chair of the board of directors of Larger Us, an organization working to help change-makers bridge divides rather than deepening them.

Join in at the St. Joseph County Public Library (Main Street Branch) Story House for a family-friendly Korean bookmark-making activity to celebrate Korea Week 2025. Celebrate Korean Alphabet Day by creating a beautiful bookmark with Korean characters. Ages 5 to 11 are welcome.Join professors from the University of Notre Dame's Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies to learn about the unique Korean alphabet, called Hangul, and create a beautiful bookmark with Korean letters. The Korean alphabet was created by King Sejong the Great and his scholars in 1443. King Sejong wanted Hangul to be easily understood in order to increase literacy, and Hangul is considered revolutionary because it is so easy to learn. The development of Hangul was such an important tool for democracy that Hangul Day is celebrated on October 9 each year.About the Series Korea Week 2025 is co-hosted with Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and Korean Cultural Center, Washington, D.C. This week is sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and the St. Joseph County Public Library. Originally published at asia.nd.edu.

Thad DunningRobson Professor in Political ScienceUniversity of California, Berkeley A vast literature highlights the political, social, and economic consequences of slavery. Yet previous research — particularly in political science and particularly in work on Latin America — appears to have missed important channels through which the regulation of slavery contributed crucially to state-building. In this research in progress, Dunning argues that the regulation of slavery in imperial Brazil contributed to the construction of a bureaucracy that was autonomous in many ways of slaveholder interests and propose the hypothesis that this was driven by imperatives of political survival. He then empirically examine two main vehicles through which an autonomous state was built: responses to lawsuits for freedom brought on behalf of enslaved persons and appeals for protection in the carceral system. The argument and supporting evidence may contribute new comparative insights to the understanding of state-building in the Americas.Thad Dunning is the Robson Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and director of the Center on the Politics of Development. His research centers on comparative politics, political economy, and quantitative methods, with a regional focus on Latin America, Africa, and India. For more information, visit the event page. Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute at the Keough School of Global Affairs.