Jane Jacobs biographer Peter L. Laurence will talk about his book, Becoming Jane Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), on Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. in Devlin Hall, room 101. In his biography, Laurence examines how Jane Jacobs, who only held a high school diploma, became recognized as one of the key figures in American urbanism. According to Laurence, Jacobs was immersed in an elite intellectual community of architects and urbanists, and her ideas and writings developed over many decades and were influenced by members of the traditions she was critiquing. Laurence is an associate professor of architectural and urban history, theory and design at Clemson University School of Architecture. His work has been published in the Journal of Urban Design, Journal of Architectural Education, and Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and he has contributed to the creation of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Jane Jacobs Medal. Sponsors: Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics and Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action.
Becoming Jane Jacobs
Cartoonist Roz Chast
A prominent cartoonist who joined The New Yorker in 1978, Roz Chast has established herself as one of our greatest artistic chroniclers of the anxieties, superstitions, furies, insecurities and surreal imaginings of modern life. She will discuss her graphic memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, which tells the story of losing her elderly parents in middle age, on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. A New York Times bestseller, the book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction. Chast was awarded the New York City Literary Honor in Humor in 2012. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series.
Book reviews in Commonweal
A recent issue of the magazine Commonweal features book reviews by two members of the Boston College community. Canisius Professor James F. Keenan, S.J., director of the Jesuit Institute, reviewed American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global by John T. McGreevy. McGreevy’s book explains how deep and pervasive American anti-Jesuit sentiments were, why they were so extreme, and how they were overcome. Fr. Keenan writes that American Jesuits and the World is “extraordinarily rewarding” adding, “I had no idea of how deep and pervasive American anti-Jesuit sentiments were.” Inaugural Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life Director Alan Wolfe reviewed Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow by Steven B. Smith. The author writes about how to think about modernity without resorting to endless negation. Wolfe praises Smith’s clarity of thinking, yet finds shortcomings in the collection of essays he has assembled.
Disabled and betrayed
In a book review for America magazine, William Bole calls The Boys in the Bunkhouse: Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland by Dan Barry a “disturbing yet beautifully told story.” Boys in the Bunkhouse is a nonfiction account of the decades-long mistreatment of a group of intellectually challenged men by their employer, Henry’s Turkey Service in Iowa. Barry was the featured author and speaker at Boston College’s First Year Academic Convocation in 2012 for his book Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game. Bole is a senior writer/editor in the Carroll School of Management.
After Baghdad fell
Best-selling author Kanan Makiya, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Brandeis University, will speak about his new book, The Rope (Pantheon Books, 2016), on Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. in McGuinn Auditorium. The Rope is unflinching novel about Iraqi failure in the wake of the 2003 American invasion, as seen through the eyes of a Shi‘ite militiaman whose participation in the execution of Saddam Hussein changes his life in ways he could never have anticipated. Makiya is also the author of Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem, and Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World, among other titles. A book signing will follow the lecture. Read an interview with the author in the New York Times. Sponsor: Islamic Civilization and Societies Program.
The Francis pontificate
Richard Gaillardetz, Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology, will present “The Francis Pontificate: Historical Anomaly or the Beginning of a Postmodern Papacy?” on Nov. 10 at 5:30 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. He will talk about whether or not the first Jesuit pope is setting a new ecclesial trajectory for the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. Gaillardetz is author or co-author of several books, including Keys to the Council: Unlocking the Teaching of Vatican II; An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism, and Go Into The Streets! The Welcoming Church of Pope Francis. Sponsors: School of Theology and Ministry and the Church in the 21st Century Center.
Burns Scholar lecture
Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies Louis de Paor will present: “Lethal in Two Languages: Flann O’Brien and Máirtín Ó Cadhain” on Nov. 9 at 4:30 p.m. in the Thompson Room of Burns Library. De Paor’s talk will focus on the parallels and differences between two of Ireland’s most accomplished writers and contrarians, on the historical context in which they emerged, and their contributions to world literature. De Paor’s published works include an anthology of 20th-century poetry in Irish, Coiscéim na haoise seo, co-edited with Seán Ó Tuama, a critical edition of the poems of Liam S Gógan, Míorúilt an chleite chaoin, and Leabhar na hAthghabhála, a bilingual anthology of 20th-century poetry in Irish with English translations. A reception in the Irish Room of the Burns Library will follow his lecture. An RSVP is requested. Sponsors: Center for Irish Programs and the Burns Library.
Minding the gap
One of the country’s leading experts on the mindset of today’s college students, Jean Twenge, will present “Minding the Gap: What generational data can tell us about mental health, happiness, and resilience among today’s college students” on Nov. 7 at 3 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. Twenge is the author of the groundbreaking books Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before and The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (co-authored with W. Keith Campbell). Her research on today’s youth, which has been covered in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post, is based on a dataset of 11 million young people throughout the U.S. She is professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Sponsor: the Division of Student Affairs.Going back home
Professor of English Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point and other novels, has written an essay for Tablet magazine about taking her nearly 80-year-old mother back to her childhood home in Queens, NY. Graver and her mother made an unexpected connection with the family living in the bungalow in Cambria Heights.
Isolation and justice
Judith Resnik, the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, will present “Not Isolating Isolation: Whippings, Solitary Confinement, Prisoner Disenfranchisement, and the Bounding of Licit Punishment” on Nov. 3 at 5 p.m. in Barat House on the BC’s Newton Campus. Resnik is an award-winning scholar and author who teaches federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, citizenship, feminism, and local and global interventions to diminish inequalities and subordination. Her publications include Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (with Dennis Curtis); Federal Courts Stories (co-edited with Vicki C. Jackson), and Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender (co-edited with Seyla Benhabib). Resnik is the founding director of the Arthur Liman Program, which joined with the Association of State Correctional Administrators in publishing Time-in- Cell: The Liman-ASCA 2014 National Survey of Administrative Segregation in Prison, a report on both the numbers of people and the conditions in solitary confinement nationwide. Resnik is a recipient of the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the Commission on Women of the American Bar Association; the Outstanding Scholar of the Year Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation; the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Prize, awarded to outstanding faculty in higher education in the fields of psychology or law, and the Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, the highest honor presented by the National Association of Women Lawyers. Sponsor: Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
BC Bookmarks 