Fall 2022
Rev. T. Nishaant, S.J.: The Oppression and Resilience of India's Musahars
September 20, 2022
Rev. T. Nishaant, S.J., an International Visiting Jesuit Fellow at Holy Cross for 2022-2023, describes the culture of India's Musahars, some of the poorest people in the world, and considers how we might remedy the generations-deep injustices done to them.
Building the Political Will & Moral Courage to End Hunger in America
September 26, 2022
Previewing the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, this forum addresses the problem of hunger, our moral imperative to end it, and ways the Holy Cross community, as individuals and as an institution, can affect change. With Congressman Jim McGovern; Erin McAleer '02, CEO and president of Project Bread; Jean McMurray, executive director of the Worcester County Food Bank; Winton Pitcoff, director of the Massachusetts Food System Collaborative; and Phoebe Wong '26, a FoodCorps service member.
Kate Manne: What Is Misogyny? Concepts, Targets, and Triggers
September 29, 2022
Kate Manne, associate professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University, offers her definition of misogyny, as distinct from sexism, and describes applications including violence by incels, online media harassment, healthcare disparities, and the difficulty women have attaining leadership positions.
Craig Rood: Reimagining Protection from Gun Violence
October 3, 2022
Craig Rood, associate professor of English at Iowa State University, explains both the power and problems with the rhetoric used in the gun violence debate. He discusses the dominant narrative of protection and argues that personal stories about gun suicide and domestic gun violence reimagine human character, guns, and moments of gun violence.
Joseph McCartin '81: Confronting the 21st Century Labor Question: Catholic Social Teaching, Work Relations, and the Deepening Crisis of Democracy
October 18, 2022
Labor expert Joseph McCartin ‘81, professor of history and executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, traces the rise and fall of democratic and workers' rights over the 20th century and explains how Catholic social teaching can help point the way forward.
Brian Robinette: Contemplation in an Age of Anger
October 20, 2022
Brian Robinette, associate professor of theology at Boston College, explores the importance of contemplative practice in the midst of widespread social upheaval. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.
Amy Gajda: Privacy's Tangled History and Its Tenuous Post-Dobbs Future
October 26, 2022
Amy Gajda, The Class of 1937 Professor of Law at Tulane University Law School, considers the tangled history of privacy and how to define privacy in a world where it is contested.
Shannen Dee Williams: Confronting America's Real Sister Act: Black Catholic Nuns in United States History
November 10, 2022
Shannen Dee Williams, associate professor of history at Dayton University, shares the little known story of a radical group of Black women and girls who fought against racism, sexism, and exclusion to become and minster as consecrated women of God in the Roman Catholic Church. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.
Ido Koch: Home in a Distant Land: Archaeology and the Study of Uprooted Communities in Israel
November 15, 2022
Ido Koch, senior lecturer in archaeology at Tel Aviv University and co-director of the Tel Hadid Expedition, describes forced migrations in the Assyrian Empire in the first millennium BCE, focusing on their experience of those being deported, how they rebuilt their life in a new place, and how archaeologists can find them. Supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò: Being in the Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference
November 17, 2022
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, discusses problems of elite capture and deference epistemology and proposes constructive epistemology as an approach to organize new rooms that focus on structural, practical change.
Spring 2023
Rev. Selva Rathinam, S.J.: Suffering, Resistance and Freedom: A Postcolonial Subaltern (Dalit) Study of Isaiah 52:13-53:12
February 6, 2023
Rev. Selva Rathinam, S.J., an International Visiting Jesuit Fellow at Holy Cross for 2023, applies concepts of the postcolonial method to interpret the text of the last Servant Song from the point of view of the Dalits, the oppressed people of India’s lowest caste.
Rev. Angus Ritchie: Beyond Activism: Building Broad-based Alliances to Tackle the Climate Crisis
February 9, 2023
Rev. Angus Ritchie, director of the Centre for Theology and Community and a priest in the Anglican Diocese of London, explains the harm of "fake" populism employed by the political right and left and advocates for an "inclusive populism," as embraced by Pope Francis, to address environmental injustice. Cosponsored with the Office of the President.
Sylvester Johnson: Can Robots Feel Pain? Theorizing AI from Ibn Rushd's 'Science of the Soul'
February 13, 2023
Sylvester Johnson, associate vice provost for public interest technology and founding director of the Center for Humanities at Virginia Tech, interprets theoretical claims about the “science of the soul” in the work of 12th century Islamic scholar Ibn Rushd and leverages Rushd’s distinction between sensing and knowing in order to examine contemporary, sensory-driven AI technology. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.
Rev. Joachim Zoundi, S.J.: Evil and Sin in African Traditional Religion and Christian Revelation
February 14, 2023
An International Visiting Jesuit Fellow at Holy Cross this semester, Rev. Joachim Zoundi, S.J. explores the problem of sin and evil, their sources and consequences, and how they are addressed by both African Traditional Religions and Christian revelation.
Lawrence Joseph: Vocation of the Writer Annual Lecture
February 16, 2023
Acclaimed poet and lawyer Lawrence Joseph talks about the vocation of writing, reflecting on personal stories as the grandson of Lebanese and Syrian Catholic immigrants. He reads several of his poems. Part of the Creative Writing Program's Working Writers Series.
Lewis Gordon: What does it mean to decolonize philosophy?
February 17, 2023
Lewis Gordon, professor and head of philosophy at the University of Connecticut-Storrs, explores ways in which philosophy, at least as understood in its Euromodern form, is colonized. Through a reflection from an East African philosopher from 4,000 years ago, he explains that philosophy originated as a liberatory project devoted to knowing as a practice of freedom and love in a courageous relationship with reality. Cosponsored with the Department of Philosophy.
Kristy Nahbhan-Warren: Heartland Catholicism: How Faith and Migration in Rural America are Reshaping Parishes and Communities
February 27, 2023
Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Professor, V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Iowa, draws on her recent book, "Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland" (UNC Press, 2021), to dig below the stereotypes to reveal the grit and grace of a heartland that is a major global hub of migration and food production—and also, it turns out, religion.
Nina Pavcnik: How Globalization Shapes Inequality: Lessons from 40 Years of Trade Liberalizations
March 15, 2023
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Nina Pavcnik draws on empirical evidence from a wide range of countries to discuss how trade liberalizations implemented since the 1980s shaped inequality within countries. Pavcnik is Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies and professor of economics at Dartmouth College.
Sylvia Chan-Malik: Race/Religion: Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and the Case of Islam
March 16, 2023
Through a focus on Islam and Muslims in the United States, Sylvia Chan-Malik, associate professor in the departments of American and women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, explores the intersections, evasions, omissions, and errors that occur in the study of race and religion in ethnic studies and religious studies.