Writer Colm Tóibín will present “The Knowledge and the Power: Writing and Violence” at Boston College Mar. 16 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. Tóibín is author of the acclaimed novel Brooklyn, about a young Irish immigrant in 1950s New York. The novel was adapted into an Oscar-nominated feature film in 2015. His other novels include Nora Webster, The Blackwater Lightship and The Master, among others. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times and his play, “The Testament of Mary,” was nominated for a Tony Award in 2013. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. Tóibín is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of Humanities at Columbia University and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. Sponsors: Lowell Humanities Series and Culture Ireland.
Colm Tóibín
Career Courage
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That question persists long after childhood. Finding one’s true calling takes courage. It means conquering fears, shedding misguided ideas, and mustering the strength to let go of a safe job and stage your next act. In her new book, Career Courage: Discover Your Passion, Step Out of Your Comfort Zone, and Create the Success You Want, alumna Katie C. Kelley, a former psychotherapist and executive coach, guides readers through the soul-searching and planning process.
Adoption, secrecy and love
Journalist and BC alumna Caitríona Palmer was born in Dublin in 1972 to an unwed mother. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she still was eager to track down her birth mother. When she was in her late 20s, she connected with her birth mother and they developed a strong attachment. But her birth mother had one painful condition, she wished to keep Caitríona secret from her family, from her friends, from everyone. In her new memoir, An Affair with My Mother: A Story of Adoption, Secrecy and Love (Penguin Random House, 2016), Palmer writes of the social and familial forces that left her birth mother–and so many other unwed Irish mothers of her generation– frightened, traumatized and bereft.The author calls out the false shame of her origins and describes how it feels to be – in the interests of Catholic “respectability” – excluded from the facts of your own life. Palmer writes for the Irish Independent and, previously, for the Irish Times. Read more in the Irish Times | Daily Mail.
Taking children around the world
Alumna Joan Curley has circumnavigated the globe twice and has lived in the US, Bermuda, Germany and Egypt. Her trips have inspired a series of children’s books, each based on places she has visited. Her newest title is Mary Lou and the Queen Mary 2. A lifelong educator, Curley has served as a teacher, school counselor and principal. Named Woman of the Year by the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Massachusetts, Curley earned a commission from the governor of Guam to become a member of the Ancient Order of the Chamorri (a distinguished award for service to the people of Guam) and Minister of Education recognition for educational service in Bermuda. Read more about Curley.
Ellie Lofaro
Alumna Ellie Lofaro, founder of Heart Mind & Soul Ministries, is a nationally noted speaker and teacher. She is the author of several books, including Leap of Faith: Embracing the Life God Promised You; From Battle Scars to Beauty Marks and Slices of Life: Unexpected Blessings from Everyday Life. She also co-authored, with Kathy Troccoli, Spaghetti for the Soul: A Feast of Faith, Hope and Love.
Everyday Renaissances
Revealing a Renaissance beyond Michelangelo and the Medici, Associate Professor of History Sarah Gwyneth Ross recovers the experiences of everyday men and women who were inspired to pursue literature and learning, in her new book Everyday Renaissances: The Quest for Cultural Legitimacy in Venice (Harvard University Press, 2016). Ross draws on a trove of original unpublished sources—wills, diaries, household inventories, account books, and other miscellany—to reconstruct the lives of over 100 artisans, merchants and others on the middle rung of Venetian society who embraced the ennobling virtues of a humanistic education. Ross focuses on three doctors, who, unlike priests or lawyers, had not yet rid themselves of the taint of artisanal labor, and were thus indicative of a middle class that sought to earn the respect of their peers and betters, protect and advance their families and secure honorable remembrance after death.
Lynch School educators
Lynch School of Education professors have recently served as co-editors for two important texts. Ana M. Martínez Alemán is the co-editor of Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press), which argues that critical tools and methods are central to contemporary scholarship and can have practical policy implications when brought to the study of higher education. According to the book’s contributors, critical research design and critical theories help scholars see beyond the normative models and frameworks that have long limited the understanding of students, faculty, institutions, the organization and governance of higher education, and the policies that shape the post-secondary arena. Jacqueline Lerner is a co-editor of Promoting Positive Youth Development: Lessons from the 4-H Study (Springer). Based on findings from the longitudinal 4-H study, this volume discusses how resources, such as strong relationships with parents, peers and the community, can be fostered in young people to contribute to the enhancement of their functioning throughout life.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged education, higher education, Lynch School of Education, psychology, research
Leave a comment
Empathy Exams
Leslie Jamison will read from her award-winning best-seller The Empathy Exams, a collection of personal essays about the possibilities, texture and limits of compassion, on Mar. 2 at 7 p.m. in Gasson 100. The Empathy Exams was named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The New York Times and Publishers Weekly. Jamison wrote an essay in The Guardian about responses from readers of The Empathy Exams. She is also the author of the novel, The Gin Closet, and an assistant professor at Columbia University. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series.
Jesus, a rebellious son?
BC’s Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Relations Adele Reinhartz will present “A Rebellious Son? Jesus and His Mother at the Wedding in Cana (John 2)” onMar. 2 at 5:30 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. In the Gospel of John, Jesus and his mother are at a wedding in Cana. The wine runs out during the celebration. When Jesus’s mother points out the problem to her son, however, he answers in a surprising way: “Woman, what does this have to do with you and me?” This lecture will examine the exchange in the context of Jewish and Greco-Roman norms governing parent-child relationships, and considers its role in the Gospel’s overall presentation of Jesus. Reinhartz is a professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of numerous books, including Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John, Scripture on the Silver Screen, Jesus of Hollywood, Caiaphas the High Priest and Bible and Cinema: An Introduction. Sponsors: School of Theology and Ministry and the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. Registration.
American identity
Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker whose work centers on the changing American identity, will speak on March 1 at 6 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. Vargas is the founder of Define American, a non-profit media and culture organization that seeks to elevate the conversation around immigration and citizenship in America, and the founder and editor of #EmergingUS, a digital magazine focusing on race, immigration and identity in America that will launch this year. In 2011, he wrote a groundbreaking essay for the New York Times Magazine chronicling his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. A year later, he wrote a follow-up cover story for TIME magazine. He also produced and directed “Documented,” a documentary feature film on his undocumented experience. His writing has been published by the Philadelphia Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. He was part of the Washington Post reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. Sponsor: Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics.
BC Bookmarks 