Boston/Cambridge and the Making of American Gothic
Jan Ziolkowski, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin and director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection at Harvard University, will present “Boston/Cambridge and the Making of American Gothic” on Mar. 26 at 5:30 p.m. in Stokes Hall South, Auditorium S195. This lecture will discuss the great vogue for all things medieval in the Boston-Cambridge area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the topics discussed will be historian and intellectual Henry Adams and his influential book, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, as well as architect Ralph Adams Cram and the Gothic Revival he created in architecture, especially the Collegiate Gothic style. The lecture will be extensively illustrated, both visually and textually. Ziolkowski has written some 60 book reviews and 100 articles. His books include Jezebel: A Norman Latin Poem of the Early Eleventh Century, Alan of Lille’s Grammar of Sex: The Meaning of Grammar to a Twelfth-Century Intellectual, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150 and On Philology, among others. Sponsor: The Heinz Bluhm Memorial Lecture Series.
Historian Ira Berlin
Historian Ira Berlin, a distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland, will present “Rethinking the Demise of Slavery in The United States” on Mar. 25 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. Berlin is a leading historian of America and the larger Atlantic world in the 18th and 19th centuries. His books include Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (winner of Best First Book Prize from the National Historical Society); Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in Mainland North America (winner of the Bancroft Prize, Frederick Douglass Prize, Owsley Prize, and the Rudwick Prize), and Generations of Captivity: A History of Slaves in the United States (winner of the Albert Beveridge Prize and the Ansfield Wolf Award). Berlin is also the founding editor of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project. The project’s multi-volume Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation has twice been awarded the Thomas Jefferson Prize of the Society for History in the Federal Government, as well as the J. Franklin Jameson Prize of the American Historical Association, and the Abraham Lincoln Prize for excellence in Civil-War studies. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series.
Growing up in Detroit
Professor of English Min Hyoung Song contributed a story to the new volume Asian Americans in Michigan: Voices from the Midwest (Wayne State University Press, 2015). The 41 contributors, who trace their heritage to East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, explore their experiences, culture and heritage. The accounts in the collection come from a range of perspectives, including first-generation immigrants, those born in the United States, and third- and fourth-generation Americans of Asian heritage. Song said writing about growing up in Detroit in the 1970s and ’80s allowed him to reflect on how much his growing up was affected by a history that he couldn’t know in full but that nevertheless profoundly shaped his experiences. Read more in the Boston College Chronicle online.
Healing Himalayas
Author Stephen Alter will read from his new memoir, Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime (Arcade Publishing, 2015), on Mar. 19 at 5:30 p.m. in Stokes Hall, Room 195S. Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife, Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. Becoming a Mountain is Alter’s account of a series of treks he took in the high Himalayas following his convalescence—to prove that he had healed mentally as well as physically and to re-knit his connection to his homeland. Alter is the author of 15 other works of fiction and nonfiction. He is founding director of the Mussoorie Writers’ Mountain Festival. Sponsor: English Department.
Remembering the Irish Revolution
Irish historian Diarmaid Ferriter will present: “‘Scrambling for the bones of the patriot dead’: Remembering the Irish Revolution, 1913-23” on March 18 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. His publications include The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the life and legacy of Eamon de Valera, and Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland, among many other titles. His most recent book is Ambiguous Republic: Ireland in the 1970s. Ferriter is a professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series
Talk by Father Greg
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J., author of the bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, will speak at St. Ignatius Church on Mar. 18 at 7 p.m. Fr. Boyle is the founder of the gang-rehabilitation program Homeboy Industries. He will talk about his work with LA’s gang population, as well as offer insights into how experiences of and with others can solidify and shape vocations. Sponsor: Office of Campus Ministry and the Volunteer Service Learning Center.
At the Orphanage Edge
Following his graduation from BC in 1984, Jay Sullivan taught in Jamaica for two years as part of the International Volunteers Program (now JVC). In addition to his teaching duties, Sullivan got involved with Alpha Boys School in Kingston, an orphanage for hundreds of boys run by the Sisters of Mercy. He lived in the convent and worked with the youngsters at Alpha House. Sullivan has chronicled his time at Alpha House in the award-winning book Raising Gentle Men: Lives at the Orphanage Edge (Apprentice House, 2013). Read a review in America magazine and an author Q&A in National Catholic Reporter. All the author’s proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Sisters of Mercy and the Jesuits working in Jamaica. According to Sullivan, Raising Gentle Men has been used as a teaching tool at many schools. It was selected as the freshman read for the University of Scranton’s Class of 2018. It was also required reading for students at Loyola University Maryland in advance of their volunteer service trip to Jamaica. Sullivan spoke to students at both universities. Sullivan recently reached out and made a special connection with the volunteers who travel annually to Jamaica via the Lynch School of Education’s Mustard Seed Service Trip. Read more in the Boston College Chronicle.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged Jamaica, Lynch School of Education, service, volunteer
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The wisdom of Aquinas
In his new book, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas (Ignatius Press, 2014), Boston College Professor of Philosophy Peter Kreeft brings together more than 350 useful, everyday insights from Aquinas’ masterpiece the Summa Theologiae and pairs them with his own commentary in order to answer the kinds of questions real people ask their spiritual directors. His practical, personal and livable advice is the fruit of his labors to apply the insights of Aquinas to his own quest for sanctity, happiness and union with God. Last month, Kreeft spoke with National Review about his book. A reviewer for Catholic Lane called the book “spiritual reading of the highest order and a magnificent instance of inspired teaching, both on the part of St. Thomas and on the part of Peter Kreeft for making St. Thomas so accessible.” Kreeft is a renowned author of more than 70 books, including Back to Virtue, Because God Is Real, Jacob’s Ladder, You Can Understand the Bible, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, and Summa of the Summa.
Atlantic rule
In a new book titled Global Rules: America, Britain, and a Disordered World (Yale University Press, 2014), Boston College Professor of History James Cronin charts the political relationship between the US and Britain and a new world order they created after the Cold War that continues today. According to Kirkus Reviews, Global Rules is “a well-researched, tightly presented study of government policies on both sides of the Atlantic.” A review in The Independent (UK) concurs, stating that Cronin “writes considered and balanced prose that respects the complexity of postwar history but which tries to make sense of the longer trends and important moments in the story.” According to the publisher, Cronin’s penetrating analysis details the challenges the economic transition of the 1970s and 1980s engendered as the United States and Great Britain together actively pursued their shared ideal of an international assemblage of market-based democratic states. He also addresses the crises that would sorely test the system in subsequent decades, from human rights violations and genocide in the Balkans and Africa to 9/11 and militant Islamism in the Middle East to the “Great Recession” of 2008. Cronin also is the author of The World the Cold War Made, New Labour’s Pasts and Industrial Conflict in Modern Britain, among other titles. Cronin talks about his book in this video interview with BC Libraries’ Elliot Brandow.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged America, foreign policy, History Department, politics, United Kingdom
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