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.
American identity
Book review: Leaving Russia
In a book review for Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, Boston Bibliophile calls Professor of Russian, English and Jewish Studies Maxim Shrayer‘s memoir “a searing portrait both of Soviet life as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and the very daunting struggles of Jewish refuseniks to carve out a life while they waited to leave.” Read more about Shrayer’s book in this 11/18/13 BC Bookmarks post.
Who are the “nones”?
Roughly one-third of younger adults now say they have no religious affiliation; but who are they and why aren’t they in church? Boston University Professor Nancy T. Ammerman will present “Who are the Nones?” on Feb. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Simboli Hall, room 100, Brighton Campus. Her presentation will examine the demographic, political and cultural trends that have expanded the ranks of the unaffiliated, and asks what local communities of faith can do in response. Ammerman is the author of Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life, Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives, and Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and their Partners, among other works. Sponsor: School of Theology and Ministry. Free event registration
Gasson Prof: “What the Islamic Veil Reveals”
Gasson Professor of Political Science Pierre de Charentenay, S.J., will present “What the Islamic Veil Reveals” on Feb. 25 at noon at the Boisi Center at noon. RSVP required. Fr. de Charentenay, who was born in France, has been a member of the college of writers for the Civiltà Cattolica, the magazine of the Roman Jesuits overseen by Vatican authorities. He is a former president of the Centre Sèvres, the Paris Institute of Higher Education of the Society of Jesus, and was the chief editor of the monthly journal of the Jesuits of France, Études, from 2004 to 2012. He is the author of nine books including Les Philippines, Archipel Asiatique et Catholique, Regagner L’Europe and Les Nouvelles Frontières de Laïcité and over 500 essays featured in French and foreign journals and newspapers. The abstract for his talk is as follows: The veil that Muslim women wear is an instrument of cultural and religious identity and has no extreme connotation within Islam. However, the veil has become a hot-button issue in France, which has suffered from attacks by Muslim extremists. The choice to wear the Islamic veil in France is seen by some as a rejection of French identity. Should the French appropriate and welcome Muslim women who wear the veil? Should the Muslim women reject the veil in order to show their allegiance to France? Can their identity come both from France and Islam? Sponsor: Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life
The beauty of Maine
For hundreds of years, photographers, like other artists, have made their way to Maine to capture the natural beauty and human culture of the state. Maine Photography: A History, 1840-2015 (Down East Books, 2016), co-authored by BC alumna Libby Bischof, is the first comprehensive overview of the history of photography in the state. Providing basic knowledge of the most important people and institutions to have promoted photography, this volume also studies the ways in which photography has informed the understanding of the social and cultural history of Maine. Bischof, a cultural historian, is also the co-author of Maine Moderns: Art in Seguinland, 1900-1940.
Altbach’s Global Perspectives
Research Professor Philip G. Altbach, founding director of the Center for International Higher Education, is a leading authority on higher education worldwide. His new book, Global Perspectives on Higher Education (John Hopkins University Press, 2016), reflects his scholarship based on 50 years of research and teaching. The volume features 18 essays on all aspects of international higher education, including the globalization of rankings, research universities in developing countries, Western impact on Asian higher education, student political activism and challenges facing Brazil, Russia, India and China, among many other topics. CIHE colleagues Laura Rumbley and Hans de Wit, as well as BC alumni Liz Reisburg and Ivan Pacheco, also contributed to the volume.
Documenting Gendered Violence
Communication Professor Lisa Cuklanz is co-editor, along with Heather McIntosh, of Documenting Gendered Violence: Representations, Collaborations, and Movements (Bloomsbury, 2015), which explores the intersections of documentary and gendered violence. Contributors to the text investigate representations through grounded textual analyses of key films and videos, while others use analysis and interviews to explore how gender violence issues impact production and how these documentaries become part of collaborations and awareness movements. Cuklanz contributed the chapter, “Creating a Sense of Reality in Sex Crimes Unit.” Cuklanz also is the author of the books, Rape on Prime Time: Television, Masculinity, and Sexual Violence and Rape on Trial: How the Mass Media Construct Legal Reform and Social Change.
George Washington Prize finalist
Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention by Boston College Law School Professor and Lee Distinguished Scholar Mary Sarah Bilder has been named a finalist for the 2016 George Washington Prize. The annual award recognizes the past year’s best written works on the nation’s founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of early American history. Created in 2005 by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Washington College, the $50,000 George Washington Prize is one of the nation’s largest and most notable literary awards. Past recipients have included Pulitzer Prize-wining historian Annette Gordon-Reed and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. The winner of the 2016 prize will be announced on May 25 at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Read about Bilder’s book in the 9/17/15 BC Bookmarks post.
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged Boston College Law School, constitution
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The Grace of Silence
Award-winning journalist and longtime host and special correspondent for National Public Radio Michele Norris will present “The Grace of Silence and the Power of Words” on Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. While exploring the hidden conversation on race unfolding throughout America in the wake of President Obama’s election, Norris discovered that there were painful secrets within her own family that had been willfully withheld. These revelations—from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police officer to her maternal grandmother’s job as an itinerant Aunt Jemima in the Midwest—inspired a bracing journey into her family’s past. Her book, The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir (Vintage, 2011), elegantly explores the power of silence and secrets and boldly examines racial legacy and what it means to be an American. Norris has gone on to create The Race Card Project, winner of the 2014 George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in electronic communication. Sponsors: The Division of Student Affairs and the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs.
Liberation through Reconciliation
School of Theology and Ministry Assistant Professor O. Ernesto Valiente taps into his experiences in his native El Salvador for his new book, Liberation through Reconciliation: Jon Sobrino’s Christological Spirituality (Fordham University Press, 2015). Valiente builds on Jon Sobrino’s thought to construct a Christian spirituality and theology of reconciliation that overcomes conflict by attending to the demands of truth, justice and forgiveness. Listen to a fall 2015 presentation by Valiente on “A Liberating Spirituality for a Suffering World.”
BC Bookmarks 