In This Section

Past Events: 2012-2013

SUMMER 2012

June 9 - September 9, 2012
ART EXHIBITION: Diluvial - Cristi Rinklin, associate professor of drawing and painting at the College of the Holy Cross, has created an immersive, site-specific installation for the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H. The McFarland Center has provided support for this project.

FALL 2012

September 11, 2012
From Culture of Fragmentation to Culture of Communion - Rev. A. Maria Arul Raja, S.J., International Visiting Jesuit Scholar at Holy Cross, uses the experience of India's exclusion of Dalit peoples to look at ways of building communities that break down discriminatory hierarchies.

September 17, 2012
The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action - Randall Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University, talk about Fisher v. University of Texas, Austin, the affirmative action case coming before the Supreme Court in October.

September 24, 2012
A World Cut in Two: Global Justice and the Traffic in Humans for Organs - Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Chancellor's Professor, Medical Anthropology at University of California Berkeley. She is co-founder and director of Organs Watch, a program that researches human organ trafficking around the world.

September 27, 2012
James X - Gerard Mannix Flynn, an Irish writer, playwright, actor and politician, performs his one-man play, a semi-autobiographical account of a man waiting to give testimony to a tribunal investigating the sexual and physical abuse of children within the Catholic Church and State institutions.

October 1, 2012
Affirmative Action and Diversity at Holy Cross - As a follow-up to Prof. Kennedy's talk, the McFarland Center sponsors a fishbowl-style discussion to consider how the ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas could change life at Holy Cross, and what competing notions of justice affect how we think about the case.

October 3, 2012
Living in China's Highly Politicized Church Today - Rev. Paul Mariani, S.J., assistant professor of history at Santa Clara University, talks about religious policy and conflict in the People's Republic of China since 1950 and how Catholics in China understand their faith today. Part of the Catholics and Cultures initiative, understanding the religious lives and practices of Catholics around the world, and the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

October 4, 2012
Annual Vocation of the Writer Reading and Discussion - Poet and essayist Christopher Merrill is author of "Things of the Hidden God," an account of his pilgrimages to Mount Athos. He has held the William H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, and now directs the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa. Sponsored with the Creative Writing Program.

October 16, 2012
Catholicism, Citizenship and Conscience: What Does It Mean to Be a Faith-filled Voter in our Polarized Society? - Bishop Robert W. McElroy is auxiliary bishop of San Francisco and the author of "Morality and American Foreign Policy" (Princeton, 1992). One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

October 17, 2012
Faculty/Administration Fishbowl on Need-Blind Admissions - A fishbowl-style discussion of affordability issues the College faces in the coming years, and particularly the sustainability of its need-blind admissions policy. The faculty in the fishbowl are Melissa Boyle, associate professor of economics; Diane Bukatko, professor and chair of psychology; Dave Damiano, professor of mathematics and computer science; and Paige Reynolds, associate professor of English. Participating administrators are Timothy Austin, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the College; Mike Lochhead, vice president for administration and finance; and Frank Vellaccio, senior vice president. Thomas Landy, director of the McFarland Center, moderates.

October 23, 2012
Contemporary artist Alexis Rockman will talk about his work, which explores the ways in which human activity has had an impact on the natural world - such as global warming and bioengineering - through dynamic large-scale paintings.

November 1, 2012
A Good Man and A Great Man - Mark K. Shriver '86 shares stories of his father, Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty, from his 2012 memoir, "A Good Man." Anthony Kuzniewski, S.J., professor of history at Holy Cross, offers a historical account of Sargent Shriver's legacy.

November 5, 2012
Passivity of bystanders in genocide and mass killing and generating active bystandership - Ervin Staub is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and founding director of its Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence. This event is sponsored by the Department of Psychology with support from the McFarland Center's Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

November 7, 2012
Coming to Terms with the Past: How Our Understanding of the Christian Past Shapes Our Future - Kenneth Parker, associate professor of historical theology at Saint Louis University, discusses how competing accounts of historical narrative are used to define the church today. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

November 13, 2012
American Grace: How Religion Divides Us and Unites Us - Robert Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is co-author of "American Grace," which uses data from two of the most comprehensive national surveys on religion and civic engagement ever conducted to discern the role of religion in public life. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

November 15, 2012
Domestic Workers: How a Female Dominated Labor Sector Organized to Win International Labor Rights - Rebeca Pabon, a union organizer for domestic workers in FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands, has worked closely with union members to coordinate the campaign for domestic workers' rights nationally.

SPRING 2013

January 24, 2013
Ethics in Business Symposium - Bruce Weinstein, author of the recent book "Ethical Intelligence: Five Principles for Untangling Your Toughest Problems at Work and Beyond" leads this symposium to kick off Holy Cross' participation in the Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition. Co-sponsored by the James N. and Eva Barrett Endowment for Ethics Programming, Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies, the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, and the Economics and Accounting Department.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Vatican and the Nuns - Sr. Jane Morrissey, of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Springfield, who is co-founder and executive director of Homework House, Inc. and Sr. Donna Markham, of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, who is vice president of behavioral health services at Catholic Health Partners in Cincinnati and former president of the Leadership Conference of the Women Religious, participate in this discussion moderated by Virginia Ryan, visiting assistant professor of religious studies.

February 12, 2013
The Burial of the Dead in the Modern Novel - Pericles Lewis, professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University and inaugural president of Yale-NUS in Singapore, is the author of "Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel" (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

February 18, 2013
Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity - Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and founder and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

February 19, 2013
After Sandy Hook: How do we prevent similar forms of violence? - A fishbowl-style campus discussion featuring Amy Wolfson, professor of psychology and associate dean for faculty scholarship; Alison Smith Mangiero, political science instructor; Lawrence E. Cahoone, professor of philosophy; Miles Cahill, professor of economics and associate health professions adviser; Robert T. Jones, associate director of multicultural education; Marian Blawie '16; and Chris Tota '13. Thomas M. Landy, director of the McFarland Center, moderates.

February 21, 2013
Women After the Arab Spring Revolution: Rights and Religion - Dalia Mogahed is executive director of and senior analyst for the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and coauthor of "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think." (Gallup Press, 2008)

February 26, 2013
Rape as a Weapon of War - Kelly Askin, senior legal officer for International Justice in the Open Society Justice Initiative, is author of War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes.

March 13, 2013
U.S. Use of Drones: Moral, Legal, or Effective? - Panel discussion featuring David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center; Avery Plaw, associate professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; and Gregory Johnsen, Near East Studies Scholar at Princeton University. Co-sponsored with Peace and Conflict Studies.

March 14, 2013
From Tolerance to Celebration: Confessions of a Jewish Bridge Builder - Rabbi Abie Ingber is executive director of the Center for Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University. Sponsored by the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

March 18, 2013
God and Evolution - Martin Nowak is professor of biology and of mathematics and director of the program for evolutionary dynamics at Harvard University. One of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

March 21, 2013
Israel's Security in a Changing Middle East - Yaakov Katz is the military reporter and defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Sponsored by the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

April 4, 2013
Journeys of Transformation: Isthmus Zapotec beliefs and practices surrounding death - Anya Peterson Royce, Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, is author of "Becoming an Ancestor: The Isthmus Zapotec Way of Death" (SUNY Press, 2011). Part of Catholics and Cultures: Understanding the religious lives and practices of Catholics around the world.

April 15, 2013
Condoms on a Jesuit Campus: Free speech, sexual health and Catholic ethics - A fishbowl-style discussion featuring Ethan Jacques '15; Ken Jordan '13; Virginia Ryan, visiting assistant professor in religious studies; Martha Sullivan, director of health services; Caroline Voldstad '13; and Derek Zuckerman, associate dean for student life.

April 17, 2013
Climate Responsibility and New Cultures of Consumption - Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College, is author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Co-sponsored by Sociology and Anthropology, the McFarland Center, and Montserrat.

April 18, 2013
The Problem of Evil: Can Faith Be Rational in the Face of the Horrific Evils of this World? - Robert Audi, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at University of Notre Dame, is author of "Rationality and Religious Commitment."

April 29, 2013
Thomas More Lecture on Faith, Work and Civic Life - James O'Connor '58, former chairman and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison Company, is a founder and co-chairman of the Big Shoulders Fund, which supports Catholic education in inner-city Chicago.