“Watch,” a poignant poem by Professor of English Suzanne Matson, appears in the latest issue of The Cortland Review. A novelist and poet, Matson’s poetry has been published in several journals, including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Poetry, and Salamander. Her publications include the poetry collections Sea Level and Durable Goods, and the novels, The Tree-Sitter, A Trick of Nature, and The Hunger Moon. Read and listen to “Watch.”
Watch
The manuscript in the digital age
Medieval literature scholar Elaine Treharne, a keen advocate and critic of the use of digital technologies in the classroom and in research, will present “Momentary Presence and Manuscript Permanence in Digital Space” on Nov. 17 at 5:30 p.m.in Higgins Hall, room 300. She will discuss the manuscript as a vessel that carries the memorialized presences of people from the past into the present and how the digital realm can best be deployed to represent the permanent record of those who made even the most fleeting of efforts to be remembered. Treharne is the author of Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020 to 1220 and A Very Short Introduction to Medieval Literature and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English. She is the Roberta Bowman Denning Professor of Humanities at Stanford University where she serves as principal investigator of the NEH-funded portion of the inter-institutional grant ‘Global Currents: Cultures of Literary Networks, 1050-1900‘ and the director of Stanford Text Technologies. Sponsor: Heinz Bluhm Memorial Lecture Series.
War on immigrants
Sociologist Mary C. Waters will present “The War on Crime and the War on Immigrants: Racial and Legal Exclusion in the 21st Century United States” on Nov. 17 at noon in Barat House. Waters is the M.E. Zukerman professor of sociology at Harvard University and her research has focused on the integration of immigrants and their children; the transition to adulthood for the children of immigrants, and the measurement and meaning of racial and ethnic identity. She is the author/co-author of 11 books, including the award-winning Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. This lecture is part of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice’s “After Obama: What is the future of our ‘Nation of Immigrants’?” conversation series. RSVP requested.
Becoming Jane Jacobs
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.
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.
BC Bookmarks 