Writer and radio producer Daniel Alarcón will present “Stories Everywhere: Listening to Latin America” at Boston College on February 28 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall 100. Alarcón’s powerful narrative storytelling—in English and Spanish, fiction and nonfiction, print and audio—chronicles individual lives and underreported topics against the backdrop of broader geopolitical and historical forces in the United States and Central and South America. He is co-founder, host, and executive producer of “Radio Ambulante,” an award-winning Spanish-language podcast distributed by NPR. He is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. He is the author of the novels At Night We Walk in Circles and Lost City Radio and the short story collections War by Candlelight and The King is Always Above the People, which was long-listed for the National Book Award. An associate professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism, Alarcón was named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. This free BC Humanities Series lecture is supported by an Institute for the Liberal Arts Major Grant. RSVP here to reserve seating.
Listening to Latin America
Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad
Human rights activist Nadia Murad, a co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, will be the featured speaker at the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics’ Clough Colloquium on February 22 in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. Her memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, is a harrowing account of a 2014 ISIS attack on her village in Iraq. Her mother and six brothers were killed and she was kidnapped and taken into sexual slavery—one of thousands of Yazidi women and girls taken prisoner by the Islamic State. Since escaping captivity, Murad has become a leading advocate for ending sexual violence as a weapon of war. She became the first United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. She is the founder and president of Nadia’s Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to rebuilding communities in crisis and advocating for survivors of sexual violence. Her BC talk will begin at 4 p.m. Doors open at 3:30.
Joy Harjo: Indigenous Poetry and Native Literature
Award-winning poet, musician, and performer Joy Harjo will present “Indigenous Poetry and Native Literature” at Boston College on February 21 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Harjo was the first Native American to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, a post she held from 2019 to 2022. She is the author of 10 books of poetry, including the acclaimed Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior. She served as executive editor of the anthology When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry and the editor of Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, the companion to her signature Poet Laureate project. Her many honors include the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, the Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Harjo’s appearance is presented by the BC Lowell Humanities Series and co-sponsored by the BC Poetry Days Series, American Studies Program, English Department, Creative Writing Discretionary Fund, and the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America. Reserve free seating here.
Growing God
Emma—the little artist with a big dream first featured in the children’s book Drawing God—is back and looking for God in a whole new way in the book Growing God (Paraclete Press, 2024). Author Karen Kiefer, a Boston College graduate and director of the University’s Church in the 21st Century Center, has collaborated again with illustrator Kathy De Wit on Growing God. From the publisher: When Emma returns home from spending school vacation on Nana’s farm—a place where Nana says she “grows God”—Emma is inspired to try to grow God, too. Readers follow Emma as she cares for God’s creation, and finds out how a seed of opportunity can grow into something amazing. Learn more about the book, the Growing God virtual farm, and Be a Sower campaign by visiting the book’s website.
Novelist Celeste Ng
Bestselling author Celeste Ng will give a talk on February 12 as part of Cornerstone Conversations for first-year students. Her appearance will take place in Gasson Hall 100 and begins at 7 p.m. Ng is the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts. Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book of 2014, as well as Amazon’s #1 Best Book of the year, and winner of the Massachusetts Book Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, among other honors. Translated into more than 30 languages, the book is being adapted for the screen. Everything I Never Told You, which tells the story of the Chinese American Lee family, who live in 1970s small-town Ohio, “is a thoughtfully crafted story about race, class, gender, ethnicity, and education, and the parental and societal expectations that mitigate how we understand ourselves and sometimes fail to understand others,” said Elizabeth “Biz” Bracher, director of the Cornerstone Seminar Programs. She noted that many faculty members teaching the Cornerstone Seminar course The Courage to Know have incorporated the book into their coursework. Ng’s appearance is sponsored by the Cornerstone Seminar Program, English Department, and Asian American Studies Program. Read more on BC News.
Age of Identity
BC Lynch School of Education and Human Development faculty members Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves, internationally recognized experts in the field of education, have collaborated on the new book, The Age of Identity: Who Do Our Kids Think They Are and How Do We Help Them Belong? (Corwin, 2023). Written for educators, families, and school board members, The Age of Identity is a compelling call to action for a proactive approach to building a learning environment that values the diverse identities of all students. The book’s message is that there’s more to all of us than meets the eye, so we need to take the time to pay greater attention to one another. In The Age of Identity, the authors set out 12 guiding principles that leaders can use to help everyone move forward together. Shirley and Hargreaves discussed the book in this Q&A.
Trapped in the dysfunction of another’s addiction
“A child’s home should be the safest place for them, but it’s not when you live with an erratic, active alcoholic,” writes Timothy Burke, whose new memoir, Milk and Whiskey On Logan Way, recounts his traumatic coming of age in a public housing project in South Boston. A graduate of the BC School of Social Work, Burke writes about the anger, shame, and unbearable loneliness of growing up with an alcoholic father. Despite his resolute determination not to repeat his father’s behavior, Burke became addicted to alcohol. His story, however, is ultimately one of redemption. Through a 12-step program, he found recovery and has been sober for more than 30 years. Burke hopes Milk and Whiskey on Logan Way can offer hope and support to other survivors of trauma and abuse. Read more on BC News.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged addiction, alcoholism, memoir, School of Social Work
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Candlemas Lecture
Priest, theologian, and author James Alison will present the annual Candlemas Lecture at Boston College on February 7 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall 100. His talk, titled “Catholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures,” is presented by the BC Lowell Humanities and co-sponsored by the BC Theology Department. Seating can be reserved here. Fr. Alison is known for his expertise on the great French thinker René Girard and for his writings and pastoral outreach on LGBTQ issues. He is the author of several books, including Jesus the Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice; Raising Abel; The Joy of Being Wrong; Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay; On Being Liked; and Undergoing God, among others.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
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Academic excellence initiatives in higher ed
Academic Star Wars: Excellence Initiatives in Global Perspective (MIT Press, 2023) is a new book of case studies on the global phenomenon of academic excellence initiatives and how they shape the performance of research universities. Academic excellence initiatives (AEIs)—special government-sponsored programs to improve research universities—have provided billions of dollars to top universities and represent perhaps the most significant effort in the past half-century to jump-start academic research. The contributors to Academic Star Wars analyze AEIs in nine European and Asian countries (China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Denmark, France, Germany, and Russia), and seek to understand the impact of these programs on national higher ed systems. The contributors also offer policy recommendations for national decision-makers and university leaders. Academic Star Wars was edited by Maria Yudkevich, Philip G. Altbach, and Jamil Salmi, all of whom are affiliated with BC’s Center for International Higher Education.
Roya Hakakian
Roya Hakakian, a writer whose work often deals with the topics of exile, displacement, political and religious persecution, and the struggle of people—especially women—against authoritarianism, will present “The Plight of Women in Israel and Iran, and the Silence of Feminists” at Boston College on January 31. Her address will be held in Gasson Hall, room 100, at 7 p.m. Free, reserved seating found here. Hakakian is the founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. She was born and raised in a family of Jewish educators in Tehran, and arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in 1985. Her acclaimed memoir, Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran, details the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. She also is the author of Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, an account of the 1992 murders of four Iranian-Kurdish leaders in Berlin, Germany, and her most recent book, A Beginner’s Guide to America for the Immigrant and the Curious, which has been called a “love letter” to America and its democracy. She has also written essays and opinion pieces for New York Times, New York Review of the Books, and the Atlantic, among other outlets. Her lecture is presented by the BC Lowell Humanities Series and is co-sponsored by the International Studies Program, Islamic Civilization and Societies Program, and with the support of an Institute for the Liberal Arts Major Grant.
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