McFarland Center Events

Starts: Wed, Sep 9, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Wed, Sep 9, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

Hostility toward Jews is a growing concern globally. This lecture examines the religious and ethical responsibilities of Christians in responding to anti-Judaism and antisemitism. It will explore how interreligious solidarity can foster mutual understanding, uphold human dignity, and strengthen efforts to resist hatred and discrimination. .

Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

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Starts: Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

What has more power to do good: religion, or the state? As colonial Americans challenged British rule, they were also wrestling with questions of spiritual authority, moral reform, and the proper exercise of power. Clergymen and politicians, churches and governments alike confronted a changing American society that forced them to reconsider who should rule, from where, and toward what ends. This lecture in the 250th-anniversary year for the Declaration of Independence, will explore how the American Revolution transformed not only political governance, but Americans’ understanding of moral and religious authority—and of the boundaries between the “temporal” and the “spiritual."

Part of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

Starts: Thu, Oct 1, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Thu, Oct 1, 2026 at 6:00pm (America/New_York)
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid renewed national attention to racial injustice following the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, artist Dr. Imo Nse Imeh created Feeding the Veins of the Earth as a visual prayer. Part of his Benediction series, the painting imagines angels bound to the bodies of Black boys and men, bearing witness to both suffering and hope. Drawing on Christian imagery of death, resurrection, and blessing, the series explores the spiritual, social, and political dimensions of race, identity, and belonging.

Reflecting on the theological and personal questions that shaped the series, Imeh considers how Benediction has evolved into a broader inquiry into faith, citizenship, and social belonging. Bringing together art, religion, and social justice, the lecture invites audiences to consider the role of creative practice in confronting injustice and imagining new possibilities for human dignity and communal life.

Co-sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery

Starts: Wed, Oct 7, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Wed, Oct 7, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: St. Joseph Memorial Chapel

Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. For nearly four decades, he has worked alongside formerly gang-involved and incarcerated men and women, building a community centered on healing, meaningful work, and striving for a better society. Drawing on the stories and relationships that have shaped this work, Boyle will explore themes from his latest book, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. With his characteristic humor, hope and faith, he invites us to consider what it means to create communities in which no one stands outside the circle of belonging—and the work required to make such belonging real.

In conjunction with our community partners Legendary Legacies, Cafe Reyes, Hector Reyes House & Concord Prison Outreach

Starts: Fri, Oct 16, 2026
Ends: Sat, Oct 17, 2026
Location: Joyce Contemplative Center

This conference and workshop brings together students, faculty and staff from liberal arts colleges across New England to share research, strengthen collaboration and explore environmental challenges facing the region. Rooted in interdisciplinary inquiry and civic engagement, the gathering aims to build lasting networks for place-based environmental teaching, research and action.

The conference will include participants from Holy Cross, Bates, Williams, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Clark and other colleges and universities. Participants will visit community partners, learn about sustainability initiatives connecting Holy Cross faculty and students with the Worcester community, share work taking place in laboratories and community settings and explore opportunities for regional teaching and research networks.

All Holy Cross faculty are welcome to attend. For additional information, please contact Daina Cheyenne Harvey at dharvey@holycross.edu.

Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies.

Starts: Tue, Oct 20, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Tue, Oct 20, 2026 at 6:00pm 
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

Neurodiversity theory frames the differences associated with autism as located in the social environment — a mismatch in communicative acts between autistic people and non-autistic people. Using the idea of empathy and Pentecostal eschatological expectations, this lecture will present a rereading of the story found in Luke 20:27-40 where Jesus converses with the Sadducees about the afterlife to ask: what are the social conditions expected in heaven and what hope is there for autistic people?

Part of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

Starts: Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

How can philosophy help us understand and resist fascism? This dialogue explores Jeffrey A. Bernstein’s Adorno, Strauss, and Antifascist Philosophy, which brings together two influential twentieth-century thinkers whose philosophical styles and intellectual commitments differed significantly. Despite these differences, Theodor Adorno and Leo Strauss both grappled deeply with fascism and with the question of how philosophical thought might resist authoritarian impulses. Through a conversation about Bernstein’s book, the speakers will consider the unexpected points of convergence between Adorno and Strauss and the ethical responsibilities of philosophy in confronting fascism.

Co-sponsored with the Philosophy Department

Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

Starts: Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 6:30pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

Winner of the 2026 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Mr. Nobody Against Putin follows Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a teacher and school videographer in the Russian mining town of Karabash, as his school is transformed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When state-mandated patriotic lessons, ceremonies and military propaganda enter the classroom, Talankin begins secretly documenting what he sees: students being taught to support the war, teachers navigating new political demands and young people confronting the prospect of military service.

Filmed from inside the school over two years, the documentary offers an intimate account of how authoritarianism enters everyday life and the difficult choices individuals face between compliance, accommodation and resistance. Following the screening, Talankin, the film’s co-director and cinematographer, will discuss his decision to document these changes, the ethical responsibilities of educators and filmmakers and the risks of bearing witness under an authoritarian state. The conversation will explore questions of propaganda, conscience, moral courage and the human consequences of war.

Co-sponsored by Russian Studies

Starts: Thu, Nov 5, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Thu, Nov 5, 2026 at 6:00pm (America/New_York)
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, longstanding questions about the meaning of the American Revolution have taken on renewed urgency. Was the nation founded on timeless ideals of liberty and equality, or were those ideals projected backward onto the Revolution by later generations seeking a usable national past? This lecture examines how Americans in the nineteenth century created a powerful mythic narrative of the founding even while confronting slavery, inequality, and political division. Engaging prominent historical voices, this talk will explore how Americans have struggled to reconcile the nation’s highest principles with its historical failures, and whether those mythic ideals can still provide a meaningful basis for civic hope and democratic renewal today.

Co-sponsored with the History Department

Starts: Mon, Nov 9, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Mon, Nov 9, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

Access to clean water is one of the defining ethical challenges of the twenty-first century. Around the world, millions of people lack reliable access to safe drinking water and sanitation, while floods, droughts, and water conflicts disproportionately affect vulnerable communities. This lecture compares duty-based approaches to water ethics in South Asian and Western traditions, drawing on concepts such as dharma, kartavya, ahkam al-khamsa, and deontological ethics. It explores how these ethical frameworks can inform more just and sustainable approaches to water governance, from irrigation management to rural drinking water planning.

Starts: Wed, Nov 11, 2026 at 4:30pm
Ends: Wed, Nov 11, 2026 at 6:00pm
Location: Rehm Library, Smith Hall

Throughout Latin America, a wide range of therapies existed alongside each other. Even as governments persecuted Indigenous curanderos (healers) and parteras (midwives), some hospitals endorsed and employed them. Highlighting the contributions and experiences of Indigenous people, healers, midwives and the Sisters of Charity reveals how health care held multiple meanings and functioned in different ways for a variety of parties.

Part of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

Thursday, October 24, 2024 - Saturday, October 26, 2024

This colloquium will explore the varied epistemologies and tangible practices across the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as their suppression within ancient political contexts and modern disciplinary practices. The participants, professors in Classics and Biblical Studies, will scrutinize assertions of power and expressions of resistance, as well as the hegemonic processes, ancient and modern, of silencing and appropriating those expressions.  

Tat siong Benny Liew, Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies, organized this workshop-style colloquium.

Thursday, April 18 - Friday, April 19, 2024

April 7, 2024 marks the 30th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. In solidarity with Rwandans, this two-day symposium gathers international scholars to unpack the complex role of the Catholic church in the genocide and its aftermath, as well as explore broader implications for the global church today. View the schedule here. 

Conference Keynote: Theology and Ecclesiology from Wounds of the Genocide 

Thursday, April 18, 2024
7:00 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall

How does a compromised church rise from the wounds of the genocide? Rev. Marcel Uwineza, SJ, a genocide survivor, considers the historical, social, political, and theological circumstances that led to the genocide and proposes a different way forward. Uwineza is the Principal of Hekima University College in Kenya, a Jesuit School of Theology and Peace Studies. 

This Catholics & Cultures conference is organized by Audrey Seah, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. The talks will result in an upcoming issue of the Journal for Global Catholicism. 

Saturday, March 25, 2023

In conjunction with the Cantor Art Gallery exhibition curated by Amanda Luyster, this symposium explores the impact that the Crusades had on medieval western Europe. The Crusades were marked both by brutal violence, much of which was directed against people who were not European (Latin) Christians, and by sustained cross-cultural encounters which, for many Europeans, affected their sense of self for centuries to come. It can be difficult to process both of these truths simultaneously, yet essential to develop this more complex and more accurate understanding of the Crusades. The symposium will be held under the auspices of the New England Medieval Consortium and is supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. 

The Medieval Academy of America, the largest organization in America promoting medieval studies, has awarded this exhibition the 2024 Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research. This Prize is awarded "for an exceptional project that shows the value of medieval studies in our present day."

April 18-20, 2023

Incidents involving free expression on campus are riling campus communities and pitting against each other pedagogical perspectives about whether students learn best in contexts where discussion of ideas is completely unfettered, or whether some topics and ideas make students feel under attack and inhibit opportunities for learning. How do we balance the needs of protecting our students from harmful and incendiary views and helping them confront difficult and often divisive material? How do we model respectful dialogue in the interest of intellectual inquiry? The College of the Holy Cross is convening a cohort of 30 scholars, administrators and leaders, representing a range of perspectives, disciplines and roles on campus, to clarify the challenges and imagine pedagogical responses in the classroom and across campus. This conference will help us identify the distinctive tensions facing private, liberal arts educational contexts and how best to address them in order to promote a healthy campus climate and well-educated citizenry. The conference is made possible with the generous support of the John and Laura Broderick Family Foundation.

International Conference: New Communities as a Theological Setting
April 28-30, 2023

In Côte d'Ivoire, hundreds of charismatic Catholic lay communities have transformed Catholic life. This conference drew hundreds of leaders of those communities to engage with theologians and to think together about how those leaders are prepared and can benefit from ongoing theological education. Co-sponsored with Institut de Théologie de la Compagnie de Jésus, Abidjan. 

March 13-14, 2021

In preparation of their edited volume, "The Intelligentsia in Russia: Myth, Mission, Metamorphosis," Olga Partan, Associate Professor of Russian at Holy Cross, and Professor Sibelan Forrester of Swarthmore College virtually convene the book's contributors to present and solicit feedback on their draft work. The volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to addressing spiritual and moral missions of the Russian Intelligentsia, tracing its evolution over time from the 18th century to the post-Soviet era.

November 6-8, 2020

This virtual conference seeks to bring together scholars from two disciplines that have much in common but that have seldom been in conversation in recent times—New Testament studies and Classics. Sessions examine if and how the New Testament, an ancient collection of texts with its own distinctive set of religious, social, and rhetorical strategies, can serve as a helpful resource in understanding our obligations to take moral stands on issues that are dividing our world with increasing fury. Organized by Religious Studies and Classics faculty with support from the McFarland Center.

April 2-3, 2019

This two-day conference highlights a new, historically-sensitive translation of the Revised Common Lectionary intended to reduce the potential for anti-Judaism by enriching Christianity through its roots in Judaism. The conference will provide an opportunity for clergy and scholars to engage with the translation team and will feature talks by Taylor Burton-Edwards, Chair of the Consultation on Common Texts; Everett Fox, the Allen M. Glick Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University; Adèle Reinhartz, professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Ottawa; and a keynote by Mary C. Boys, vice-president of Academic Affairs and dean and the Skinner & McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, on "Seeing Judaism Anew: Jewish Christian Dialogue." The conference is supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

Friday, March 28, 2025, and Saturday, March 29, 2025

Penned in 1984 by an ecumenical group of ten deaf and hearing women and men from North America, the Claggett statement (English and ASL) was an early expression of Deaf Liberation theology produced at a time of cultural awakening and creativity among Deaf people. This symposium spotlighted this important statement on its 40th anniversary, by bringing together scholars and practitioners from the United States and beyond to examine the past, present, and future of the Claggett Statement for Deaf Christians across the world.
This symposium was co-organized by Audrey Seah (College of the Holy Cross) and Kirk VanGilder (Gallaudet University) with the support of the Deaf Studies and Sign Languages program, the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and the Deaf Catholic Archives, Archives and Distinctive Collections at College of the Holy Cross.

Saturday, May 10, 2025 - Tuesday, May 13, 2025

This workshop set a new agenda for the future of British medieval art and anticipates its development over the next quarter century. In this workshop and its later associated publication, both established and emerging scholars explored medieval British art within its larger context of religious and ethical meaning, focusing on areas of current scholarly and popular interest, including eco-criticism, the significance of animals, emotion, and the mobility of people, resources, and objects. The resulting volume will be published by Harvey Miller (London).

This workshop was sponsored by the McFarland Center and co-organized by Amanda Luyster (Holy Cross) & Matthew M Reeve (Queen's University).

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 - Friday, May 30, 2025

This workshop supported the development of an edited volume called Taking Stock: Stereotypes from Asian America to the Ancient Mediterranean. 
Fifteen contributions drew on frameworks from social psychology and Asian American studies to analyze the function of stereotypes within ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and in the scholarship that investigates them, showing how stereotypes can function both to alienate and to assimilate, to challenge and reimagine structures of power and privilege.

The workshop was co-organized by Katherine Lu Hsu (College of the Holy Cross) and Tori F. Lee (Davidson College) and sponsored by the McFarland Center and the Department of Classics.