Fr. Keenan talk on university ethics

university ethicsCanisius Professor James Keenan, S.J., will discuss his latest book, University Ethics: How Colleges Can Build and Benefit from a Culture of Ethics, at a Feb. 2 luncheon event sponsored by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. The event will be held in St. Mary’s Hall, Room 128, from 12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m. RSVP is required. Fr. Keenan is the director of the Jesuit Institute and leads the University’s Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program. Read more about his book in this 5/20/15 BC Bookmarks post. Editor’s Update: This event is now full and has a wait list.

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Sallis in China

chorolgyFrederick J. Adelmann, S.J., Professor of Philosophy John Sallis traveled to Tongji University in Shanghai where he spoke about philosophical exchanges between American and Chinese philosophers. His lectures were organized in connection with the publication of a Chinese translation of his book Chorology.

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Children and AIDS

aids and childrenWhile the number of children orphaned due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic is depressingly large, the percentage of these living in Sub-Saharan Africa is downright staggering–anywhere from 85 to 90 percent. Historically, much of the research around orphans in Africa has been focused on treatment and prevention. But there is a glaring omission to the research story: defining vulnerability in African children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and finding interventions to improve the welfare of these children.  The new book Children and AIDS (Ashgate Publishing Company, 2016), co-edited by School of Social Work Associate Professor Margaret Lombe, highlights collaborations of academics with service providers, with human rights groups and children themselves. The book looks at studies and interventions in Botswana, Zambia and Kenya. Lombe hopes that the book will be a useful resource for courses on vulnerability in children and human rights, challenging academics and students alike to question existing understandings of vulnerability, and inspire collaborations that build hope for the future of Africa’s children. Boston College alumna Chiedza Mufunde (MSW ’14) and doctoral student Aakanksha Sinha contributed chapters to the book. More from the blog Innovate@BCSocialWork.

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Puzzled

puzzledPuzzled?!: An Introduction to Philosophizing (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2015) by Philosophy Assistant Professor Richard Kenneth Atkins seamlessly fuses two traditional approaches to the study of philosophy at the introductory level. It is thematic, examining fundamental issues in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and it is also historical, introducing major philosophical arguments that have arisen throughout the history of Western philosophy. Each of its chapters begins with a traditional argument of a thoroughly puzzling kind: a valid philosophical argument with highly plausible premises but a surprising conclusion. The remainder of the chapter shows how major innovations in the history of philosophy arise as logical responses to that argument. 

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Jews of Lebanon

salamehAssociate Professor of Near Eastern Studies Franck Salameh sheds light on the rarely told story of Lebanese Jews by retelling accounts of modern Lebanese history in an essay for the Journal of the Middle East and Africa. The article is part of Salameh’s current book project, Lebanon’s Jewish Community; Fragments of Lives Arrested, forthcoming from Palgrave MacMillan in 2017.

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Thinking Prayer

prevot bookIn Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality amid the Crises of Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), Assistant Professor of Theology Andrew Prevot presents a new, integrated approach to Christian theology and spirituality, focusing on the centrality of prayer to theology in the modern age. Prevot offers critical interpretations of Martin Heidegger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Johann Baptist Metz, Ignacio Ellacuría, and James Cone, among others. His analysis of these notable philosophical and theological thinkers’ responses to modernity through the theme of prayer charts a new spiritual path through the crises of modernity.

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A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka

vodkaAlumnus Lev Golinkin will discuss his memoir, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, at BC on January 27 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100.  Golinkin came to the US as a child refugee from the Soviet Union in 1990. His op-eds and essays have appeared in The New York TimesLos Angeles Times, Boston Globe and Salon, among other outlets. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series, with funding from the Gerson Family Lecture Fund, established by John A. and Jean N. Gerson, P’14.

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Socio-environmental issues

gareau bookBoston College sociologist Brian Gareau, along with Damian White and Alan Rudy, have published Environments, Natures and Social Theory (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), a groundbreaking text that provides a definitive, cross-disciplinary mapping of the state of environmental social theory. The authors insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within reach. Gareau was one of the organizers of BC’s recent conference, “Our Common Home,” which explored the spiritual and policy implications of Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change.

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Models of Christian service

models of christian serviceChristians are called to loving service of one another and the wider world. In his book, A Step Along the Way: Models of Christian Service (Orbis, 2015), BC theologian Stephen Pope features six models of Christian service: Dorothy Stang, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar Romero and Pierre Claverie. According to Pope, these people show what it means to serve others in very distinctive and concrete ways, and he hopes the book will help readers think and talk about the Christian meaning of service. Pope also is the author of Human Evolution and Christian Ethics and editor of Hope and Solidarity: Jon Sobrino’s Challenge to the Christian Theology and The Ethics of Aquinas.

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Richard Kearney debates God

reimagining sacredWhat kind of faith, if any, can be proclaimed after the ravages of the Holocaust and the many religion-based terrors since? In the new book Reimagining the Sacred (Columbia University Press, 2015), Seelig Professor of Philosophy Richard Kearney debates God with a host of philosophers known for their work on the intersection of secularism, politics and religion. This work facilitates a fresh approach to issues of importance to all spiritually minded individuals and skeptics: how to reconcile God’s goodness with human evil, how to believe in both God and natural science, how to talk about God without indulging in fundamentalist rhetoric, and how to balance God’s sovereignty with God’s love. According to a review in Publishers Weekly, Reimagining the Sacred is a “rigorous, forward-thinking intellectual treatise [that] opens new space for religious humanism amid cacophonous secular, political, and religious debate.Kearney is the author of more than 20 books, including Strangers, Gods, and Monsters, The God Who May Be, and Anatheism: Returning to God After God. Last year, he co-edited and contributed to Carnal Hermeneutics.

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