Thumbs up for Longing to Love

A book review in America magazine praises Assistant to Vice President for University Mission and Ministry Tim Muldoon’s memoir, Longing to Love: A Memoir of Desire, Relationships, and Spiritual Transformation, calling it “a compelling portrait of. . .how longing and learning to love—and more than a little faith—can sustain two people devoted to each other, especially when, as often happens, things do not turn out quite as planned or imagined…Every young couple could benefit from the glimpse into the passions, the practicality and the piety required of marriage and family life that Muldoon offers.” Read Rev. Mark Mossa, SJ’s full review.
Posted in Boston College Authors | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The case for Lebanon

A new reading of modern Middle Eastern history is proposed—and alternate solutions to the volatile region’s problems are suggested—by Franck Salameh, an assistant professor in the Boston College Slavic and Eastern Languages Department, in his new book Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East. The author  proposes bringing back to the fore of Middle East Studies the issue of language as a key factor in shaping (and misshaping) the region, with the hope of rediscovering a broader, more honest, and less ideologically tainted discussion on the Middle East. Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East has a special focus on Lebanon, a “Christian homeland,” because Lebanon has traditionally acted as the region’s template for change and a barometer gauging its problems and charting its progress. There is more from Professor Salameh courtesy of the Boston College Libraries.
Posted in Boston College Authors | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Belfast Boys

Goldsmiths, University of London Professor Richard Grayson will speak on his book, Belfast Boys – How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War, at 4 p.m. on Oct. 18 in the Thompson Room of Burns Library. The book centers on the two battalions with overt West Belfast connections in 1914-18, the 9th Royal Irish Rifles and the 6th Connaught Rangers, but also draws in other units of the army, navy and Royal Flying Corps in which West Belfast men served. It covers the stories of the men who fought in the war, the experiences of those who returned, the work of women and children on the home front, and the controversies which have surrounded remembrance of the war in Belfast. Sponsor: Center for Irish Programs at Boston College.
Posted in Guest Authors | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Politics & culture

Wall Street Journal columnist and author Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, will speak on campus Oct. 19 at 4:30 p.m. in Robsham Theater. Her appearance is part of the Carroll School’s Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics’ Clough Colloquium.
Posted in Guest Authors | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Meet Elif Batuman

Elif Batuman has written about Thai boxing, Russian ice palaces, and comedy traffic school for The New Yorker. She contributes to London Review of Books, n+1, and the Nation. She is the author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them and a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She will speak in Devlin, 101, on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series | Tagged | Leave a comment

Fr. Neenan’s Dean’s List

Every year since 1982, William B. Neenan, SJ, one of Boston College’s most beloved Jesuits, issues his Dean’s List of recommended books. Check out the Boston College Chronicle for details about Fr. Neenan’s 2010 Dean’s List, which includes new titles by Jeannette Walls, Mitch Albom, James Martin, SJ, and Uwem Akpan, SJ. The Boston College Libraries maintains a list of every title that has appeared on Fr. Neenan’s Dean’s List.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

After 9/11

University of California at Davis Professor Sunaina Maira will discuss her book, Missing: Youth, Citizenship, and Empire After 9/11, a study of South Asian Muslim immigrant youth and issues of citizenship and empire after 9/11, on Oct. 6 at 4:30 p.m. in McGuinn Hall, 121. Sponsor: Boston College’s Institute for the Liberal Arts.
Posted in Guest Authors, Race and Culture After 9/11 Lecture Series | Leave a comment

Paging Heidi Montag

When is the modification of our appearance empowering and when is it a sign of weakness? Sociologist Victoria Pitts-Taylor, author of Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture, offers a ground-breaking analysis of the normalization of cosmetic surgery and the phenomenon of cosmetic surgery “addiction” in contemporary American medicine and popular culture. Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m.  in McGuinn 121. Sponsored by: Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Posted in Guest Authors | Tagged | Leave a comment

Missing: A grandmother

A new title to add to your TBR pile. . . Missing Lucile: Memories of the Grandmother I Never Knew, a nonfiction book by Suzanne Berne, who teaches in Boston College’s English Department, will be published in October. The author describes the book: “A daughter tries to give her dying father the mother he never really knew–and about whom little is known. Through a box of trinkets and photographs she begins to reconstruct a woman who has been missing from the family for 75 years. By doing so, she finds the father she has been missing herself.”
Read an excerpt from Boston College Magazine.
Berne is the author of The Ghost at the Table and A Crime in the Neighborhood, which won Great Britain’s Orange Prize.
Posted in Boston College Authors | Tagged | Leave a comment

What’s your heart calling you to do?

One of the leading voices on personal vocation, John Neafsey, author of A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience, will discuss what it means to hear a call in the heart and respond to vocation by becoming more just and compassionate as individuals and communities. This event is part of the Church in the 21st Century Center series on vocation. Sept. 30, 5:30 pm, Fulton Hall, Room 511.
Posted in Guest Authors | Tagged , | Leave a comment