Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture

Center-Sponsored Programs, Events & Calendar

Alumni Colloquia:

"Young Adult Catholics" conducted in conjunction with the Woodstock Theological Center - March 28-30, 2008.

Lecture Series:

Aging, Ethics and Spirituality
Condé Nast Lectures on Media, Ethics and Values
Deitchman Family Lectures in Religion and Modernity
Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding
"Last" Lecture Series
Thomas More Lectures on Faith, Work and Civic Life honors a graduate of Holy Cross by inviting him or her to speak about his or her own profession, vocation, and the ethical challenges faced there.
Faculty Author Discussion, examining recent books published by Holy cross faculty.

Other Programs:

Catholic Common Ground Initiative at Holy Cross
Colloquium on Fundamental Questions - A faculty initiative for dialogue about fundamental religious and philosophical questions which transcend disciplinary boundaries.
Presidential Colloquium: Jesuit Liberal Education and the Engaging of Cultures -Six lectures on important historical moments in Jesuit history and pedagogy, followed by discussion about the impact these might have for Jesuit education today. Co-sponsored by CREC and the President's office.
Student Interfaith Encounter - Allows students to visit and learn about area religious communities.
Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative is a College-wide effort to create or enhance programs enabling young people to draw upon the resources of religious wisdom as they consider their vocational choices.

Publications:

Destined for Evil? The Twentieth-Century Responses, ed. Predrag Cicovacki. Rochester Studies in Philosophy, University of Rochester Press: 2005. This volume is the product of the conference "The Anatomy of Evil" April 12-13, 2002.

Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith, edited by Bruce T. Morrill, Joanna E. Ziegler, and Susan Rodgers. Palgrave Macmillan: May 2006. This volume is the product of the conference of the same title held on October 18-20, 2002.

Thursday, January 24, 2008 - Aging, Ethics and Spirituality Lecture Series - "The Morality of Growing Old." Thomas R. Cole, the Beth and Toby Grossman Professor and Director of the McGovern Center for Health, Humanities, and the Human Spirit at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and Professor of Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University. Co-sponsored by the Gerontology Studies Program. 4:00 PM in Rehm Library.

Monday, February 4, 2008 - "Last Lecture" Series - Alice Laffey, Associate Professor of Religious Studies. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Lee Oser, Department of English, author of The Return of Christian Humanism (Missouri, 2007). Robert Garvey, Deptartment of Physics, respondant. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding: "Broken Homes, Broken Hearts: The Holocaust and its Languages" - Alan Rosen, lecturer in English and Holocaust Literature at Bar-Ilan University and the International School for Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem. 7:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Monday, February 18, 2008 - Phi Beta Kappa Lecture: Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, “The Sense of Beauty and Talk of God," co-sponsored by CREC. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, February 25, 2008 - "Woodrow Wilson: Father of Modern America?" Ronald Pestritto Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in American Constitution and Associate Professor of Political Science,
Hillsdale College. Co-sponsored with Political Science. 4 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, March 10, 2008 - Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding - French professor Stephen Shapiro, who visited Yad Vashem this summer with support from the Kraft-Hiatt fund speaks on "Finding My Family at Yad Vashem" 7:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Sunday, March 16, 2008 - Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding - Yehezkel Landau, Faculty Associate in Interfaith Relations, Hartford Seminary, and Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, discuss Roads to Peace in Israel and the Relationship between Jews and Muslims. 3:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - Sidney Callahan Created for Joy: A Christian View of Suffering. Callahan is an award winning author, professor, columnist and psychologist. This talk is based on her most recent book of the same title. 4:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - Daniel Callahan - "Medical Progress and The Relief of Suffering: How Much Can We Afford?" Often regarded as the founder of the field of bioethics, Daniel Callahan co-founded the Hastings Center, an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit bioethics research institute to explore fundamental and emerging questions in medicine, health care, biotechnology. He is author or editor of 39 books, including Medicine and the Market: Equity vs. Choice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); The Research Imperative: What Price Better Health? (University of California Press, 2003); False Hopes (Simon & Schuster & Rutgers University Press, 1998); The Troubled Dream of Life: In Search of a Peaceful Death (Simon & Schuster, 1993); What Kind of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress (Simon & Schuster, 1990). 7:30 PM in Rehm Library.

March 25, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Alan Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor and Chair, Dept. of Religious Studies, editor of The Encyclopedia of Judaism 4:00 PM in Rehm Library.

March 28-30, 2008 - Alumni Colloquium: "Young Adult Catholics" conducted in conjunction with the Woodstock Theological Center. By registration only. For Information call 508-793-3869.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - "Faith Across Generations: 2 Timothy 1:3-14 with reference to Caravaggio "Call of Matthew" and Chagall's "White Crucifixion" - International Visiting Jesuit Fellow Fr. Mario Farrugia, SJ, from Rome's Gregorian University. 7:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - "The Murder of Emmett Till and Parental Grief" - Harold Bush, Saint Louis University. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, April 3, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (Cambridge, 2008) by Thomas Worcester, SJ. Jonathan Mulrooney, respondent. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, April 7, 2008 - Condé Nast Lectures on Media, Ethics and Values “Can the Old Media and the New Media Make Peace and Strengthen Democracy?” - Washington Post syndicated columnist and NPR commentator E.J. Dionne. 7:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - Thomas More Lectures - Patrick Clancy ’68, one of the founders of SPUD—Student Programs for Urban Development forty years ago, today serves as Chief Executive Officer of The Community Builders, a Boston-based nonprofit housing development corporation which has created over 15,000 units of affordable housing. 7:30 PM in Rehm Library.

April 10-12, 2008 - Art, Creativity, and Spirituality in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov - a conference organized by Prof. Predrag Cicovacki, Department of Philosophy.

Monday, April 14, 2008 - “Where Have All the Adults Gone?” Columnist Diana West, author of The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization (St. Martin’s Press, 2007) 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - Charles Gallagher, S.J., who taught for two years at Holy Cross during his Jesuit "regency," returns from his theology studies in London to talk about his new book, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (Yale, 2008). Co-sponsored by the History Department. 4:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - "God-Talk and Liberal Education" - Hugh Heclo, Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Public Affairs, George Mason University. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, April 17, 2008 - "Last Lecture" Series - Victoria L. Swigert, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Dean of the Class of 2008. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, April 24, 2008- Deitchman Family Lectures in Religion and Modernity - "Muslim-Christian Encounters in 21st Century" John Esposito, University Professor & Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. 4:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Fall 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle (Cambridge, 2007) by Paige Reynolds. Boston College Professor Philip O'Leary, HC'70, will be the respondent. 4:30 PM, Rehm Library. Cosponsored by the Professor Edward Callahan Irish Studies Support Fund.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - Rev. M.K. George, SJ, International Visiting Jesuit Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, speaks on the celebrated Kerala development model in a talk titled "Learning from 'God's own Country,' Kerala, India: a Development Model and a Paradox." 4:00 PM, Rehm Library. The talk will be followed by a public welcome reception for Fr. George in Ciampi Hall.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - Higher Education Reading Group discusses Jay Parini's The Art of Teaching and Jim Lang's Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year. 4:30 PM, Rehm Library - by registation only.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - Rev. Paolo Gamberini, SJ, International Visiting Jesuit Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies, speaks on Christology at the Crossroad: in Dialogue with Judaism and Islam 4:00 PM, Rehm Library. He will highlight new perspectives in Jewish-Christian and Islam--Christian dialogue, especially in light of Pope Benedict XVI's controversial talk at the University of Regensburg. The talk will be followed by a public welcome reception for Fr. Gamberini in Ciampi Hall.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - Deitchman Family Lectures in Religion and Modernity - "Who's Afraid of American Religion?" Alan Wolfe, 4:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Thursday, November 6, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Teaching the Daode Jing ed. by Gary DeAngelis and Warren G. Frisina. Joanna Ziegler, respondent. 4:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Spring 2009

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - First in a series of four film screenings coordinated by Rev. Lloyd Baugh, SJ, International Visiting Jesuit Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies. Fr. Baugh makes reference to these films in his lecture on February 4. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964). 7:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, January 29, 2009 - Film screening: Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (1989). 7:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, February 2, 2009 - Film screening: Valerio Zurlini’s Black Jesus (1968), a little-known actualization of the Jesus story told in the context of the struggle of the Congo for independence from Belgium. The protagonist, a gentle and charismatic of peace, is modeled on Patrice Lumumba, who served briefly as Prime Minister before being arrested, tortured and executed in 1961 by the Congolese military forces loyal to Belgium. 7:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - Film screening: Mark Dornford-May’s Son of Man (2006), nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is set in post-apartheid South Africa. A charismatic and popular leader, preaching morality and justice for the poor and marginalized, is opposed and persecuted by the authorities, who eventually put him to death. 7:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - As a culimantion to the series of four film screenings in the last two weeks, Rev. Lloyd Baugh, SJ, International Visiting Jesuit Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies, speaks on The African Face of Jesus in Film. Against the background of the Jesus-film tradition, the lecture will focus on two Jesus films that are set in Africa and use African cultural and political realities as their setting. 7:00 PM, Rehm Library. The talk will be followed by a public welcome reception for Fr. Baugh in Ciampi Hall.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 - A.J. Levine and Philip Cunningham - "What are Jews and Catholics to Make of Jesus the Jew?" 3:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - Yehuda Bauer, known worldwide as a compelling speaker and one of the world's most important scholars on holocaust studies, speaks on "Holocaust and the Jewish Resistance" 4:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.