The Oppression and Resilience of India’s Musahars
September 20, 2022
Rev. T. Nishaant, S.J., an International Visiting Jesuit Fellow at Holy Cross, helps us to understand Musahar culture and explores what can and must be done to remedy the generations-deep injustices done to them.
Building the Political Will and Moral Courage to End Hunger in America
September 26, 2022
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA); 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 discuss 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. Co-sponsored with Montserrat.
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, as laid out in her 2017 book, “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny” (Oxford University Press, 2018).
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 gun protection narrative. He rhetorically analyzes personal stories about gun suicide and domestic gun violence that reimagine human character, guns, and moments of gun violence.
Nobel Prize Winning Russian Journalist Dmitry Muratov
October 6, 2022
In a keynote address and a discussion on Defending Democracy with Holy Cross President Vincent Rougeau, Russian journalist Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov, co-founder of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta and winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, describes the breakdown of democratic ideals, diplomacy and nuclear disarmament in Russia and emphasizes the threat of propaganda and disinformation campaigns worldwide.
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, explains how Catholic social teaching can help point the way as we confront dual crises in the deterioration of workers' collective power and democratic norms.
Archipelago of Resettlement: Theorizing Refugee-Indigenous Solidarities across the Refugee Settler Condition
October 19, 2022
Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, assistant professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, traces the postwar migration of Vietnamese refugees to Guam and Israel-Palestine in order to unpack what she calls the "refugee settler condition." Co-sponsored with A.S.I.A. and Asian Studies with support from the Rehm Family Fund.
Contemplation in an Age of Anger
October 20, 2022
Inspired by Thomas Merton’s classic essay, “Contemplation in a World of Action,” 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.
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, in a world in which the right to privacy is contested from many angles, how might we attempt to define privacy today in a way that defends democracy but also protects the people?
Preaching from the Roots: A Retreat for Catholic Clergy
November 9, 2022
Catholic priests assemble to focus on ways of preaching from the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament that are authentic to both Catholicism and Judaism and avoid anti-Jewish signaling and misinterpretations of the texts. Alongside presentations by Scripture scholars and experts in Judaism and Catholicism, the retreat will include shared meals, group dialogue about the challenges and possibilities of preaching Scripture, conversations on how to read biblical texts, and time in prayer. Supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.
Confronting America's Real Sister Act: Black Catholic Nuns in United States History
November 10, 2022
Shannen Dee Williams, associate professor of history at the University of Dayton, tells the real, remarkable history of a radical group of Black women and girls called to the sacred vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, 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.
Coal Capital: Fushun and the Contradictions of Fossil Fuel Extractivism
November 14, 2022
Historian Victor Seow, assistant professor of the history of science at Harvard University, discusses the history of what was once the largest coal mine in the region to explore the rise of the modern fossil fuel economy in China and Japan and, more generally, the interplay between energy and power in the industrial age. Cosponsored with History, Asian Studies, and Environmental Studies.
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 a community of deportees from Babylonia (southern Iraq), focusing on their experience of 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.
Being in the Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference
November 17, 2022
The call to “listen to the most affected” or “center the most marginalized” is ubiquitous in many academic and activist circles. But from a societal standpoint, the “most affected” by social injustice are both left out of the rooms of power and largely ignored by the people in the rooms of power. In this talk, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, discusses problems of elite capture for organizing and possible routes of response.
Koreatown, Los Angeles: Immigration, Race, and the “American Dream”
November 21, 2022
Shelley Lee, professor of American studies at Brown University, tells the story of an American ethnic community often equated with socioeconomic achievement and assimilation, but whose experiences as racial minorities and immigrant outsiders illuminate key social and economic developments in the United States since 1965. Cosponsored with History, Asian Studies, and Urban Studies.