Tattoos on the Heart
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J., founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries and author of the bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, will share his reflections on community and the sacredness of life through the lens of Ignatian spirituality, drawn from more than 20 years of work with formerly gang-involved and recently incarcerated men and women in Los Angeles. The event, scheduled for Oct. 25 in Robsham Theater, has reached capacity seating, but click here for more ways to watch. Sponsors: School of Theology and Ministry, Church in the 21st Century Center.
Baratunde Thurston: Race, media & Election 2012
Social commentator Baratunde Thurston, author of the New York Times bestseller How to Be Black, will speak on “Birth Certificates, Fact Checkers and the Art of Negrospotting: A Look at Race, Comedy, and Politics in the 2012 Election” on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. in Fulton 511. Named one of the 100 most influential African Americans, Thurston is a popular speaker with a large following on Twitter and YouTube. He served as digital director for The Onion and co-founded the blog Jack & Jill Politics. Sponsor: African and African Diaspora Studies Program
Posted in Guest Authors
Tagged African and African Diaspora Studies, humor, media, politics, race
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Spiritual practices: old and new
Catholic Spiritual Practices: A Treasury of Old and New, co-edited by School of Theology and Ministry Associate Professor Colleen Griffith and Professor Thomas Groome, is the latest title from the award-winning Church in the 21st Century Center Book Series. The volume is a collection of essays by some of the most respected Catholic writers of today that offers “a treasury of formative practices that will vivify and nurture…spiritual life.” Much like athletic or musical talent, faith flourishes with practice, according to editors. “Practices are an enormously important though under-heralded aspect of our Christian faith,” said Griffith, director of spiritual studies at STM. The volume is organized into three kinds of practice: prayer, care and spiritual growth. Groome and Griffith also contributed essays to the volume, as did Barbara Anne Radtke, an instructional designer for C21 Online, STM’s continuing education program, who writes on spiritual practices in the digital age. “Our collection has treasures old and new,” said Groome. “I think everyone can find something here that they will find engaging and valuable to their ‘practice.’” Read more in the Boston College Chronicle.
From Rotella: a new book, a NYT book review and two columns
According to a New York Times book review by English Professor Carlo Rotella, Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany — a collection of the author’s reporting, essays, short stories and drama– is a worthwhile read for Portis’ fans. Rotella, who also serves as director of BC’s American Studies program, has a newly published book of his own: Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories (University of Chicago Press). From the publisher: “The two dozen essays in Playing in Time, some of which have never before been published, revolve around the themes and obsessions that have characterized Rotella’s writing from the start: boxing, music, writers, and cities. What holds them together is Rotella’s unique focus on people, craft, and what floats outside the mainstream. ‘Playing in time’ refers to how people make beauty and meaning while working within the constraints and limits forced on them by life.”
Rotella also is a regular contributing columnist for the Boston Globe. His recent pieces reflect on the ingredients for a good education and the inspiration to be gleaned from the Rocky Marciano statue in Brockton.
Tip @ 100
Boston College is marking the 100th birthday of the late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., a 1936 alumnus who rose from his modest North Cambridge neighborhood to become of one the most powerful figures in American politics, with a special course titled “Tip O’Neill and the Evolution of American Politics.” O’Neill was a member of Congress for 34 years and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives from 1977 to 1986. Shortly after he retired, he published his memoirs, Man of the House. He died in 1994 at age 81. The course is being taught by Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Professor of American Politics R. Shep Melnick, who recently received the 2012 “Lasting Contribution Award” from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association. This award is given annually for a book or journal article, 10 years or older, that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts. Melnick was honored for his book Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights, described as “seminal,” by the award committee which stated: “Noted for its exhaustive research and incisive analysis, Melnick’s book sets the framework for understanding statutory decision-making by lower federal courts. Between the Lines seamlessly integrates courts into the rest of the political system and has informed both research and teaching within the subfield of courts and law for almost two decades.”
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged Political Science department, politics
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Poet Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon, whose poetry has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize, will give a reading on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. in Devlin Hall, room 001. Among his books of poetry are New Weather, Mules, Why Brownlee Left, Quoof, Meeting The British, Madoc: A Mystery, The Annals of Chile, Hay, Poems 1968-1998, Moy Sand and Gravel, Horse Latitudes, and Maggot. A native of Northern Ireland, Muldoon was a professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. He currently is the poetry editor of The New Yorker as well as the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor at Princeton University and Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series
Chemist wins Alpha Sigma Nu Award
Boston College organic chemist Lawrence T. Scott has been honored by Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit honor society, with a 2012 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award for his co-edited book, Fragments of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes. The Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Book Awards, established in 1979, recognize outstanding publishing achievement at Jesuit colleges and universities. Books are judged on the basis of scholarship, significance of topic to scholars across several disciplines, authority in interpretation, objectivity, presentation and style. Scott’s publication, co-edited with Marina A. Petrukhina and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., was one of only four winners, chosen from a field of 50 entries representing 16 Jesuit institutions. BC News
Why Vietnam and not Laos?
It first seemed that the US would choose Laos, not Vietnam, as the battleground to oppose the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. What changed? Boston College historian Seth Jacobs explores the events, circumstances, and in particular, the perceptions and attitudes that shaped American decision-making in Laos in his new book The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos. Jacobs is an expert on US foreign policy, particularly in the second-half of the 20th century. His other books are Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950-1963 and America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia, 1950-1957. Read an interview with Jacobs in the Boston College Chronicle.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged foreign policy, History Department, Laos, Southeast Asia, Vietnam
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