A powerful and emotional new young adult novel from Natália Gomes tells a story about friendship, healing, and hope. After the Rain (HarperCollins, 2021) is about Jack and Alice, two strangers who forge an unlikely friendship in the aftermath of trauma. Gomes is also the author of We Are Not Okay and Blackbird. Gomes earned a master’s degree from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and worked as a special education coordinator in the U.S. She now lives in Scotland has an MLitt in Scottish Literature & Creative Writing and is completing a Ph.D. in English Studies.
After the rain
Robin Wall Kimmerer on indigenous wisdom and science
Robin Wall Kimmerer will give a lecture based on her nonfiction book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Press), on December 1 at 7 p.m. (ET). Her presentation will be in webinar format followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. Kimmerer is a scientist, educator, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation whose interests include restoration of ecological communities and restoration of our relationships to land. A SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, she is founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for shared goals of sustainability. According to the publisher of Braiding Sweetgrass: “In a rich braid of reflections, [Kimmerer] circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.” She also is the author of the award-winning book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer’s talk is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series and is co–sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department. Pre-registration is required.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
Tagged botany, environment, Native American
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In honor of Fr. Bernauer
A special issue of the journal Philosophy & Social Criticism has been published in honor of Kraft Family Professor Emeritus James Bernauer, S.J., former director of BC’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. Fr. Bernauer retired in 2020 after a 40-year career at the Heights. The special issue consists of essays written by Fr. Bernauer’s colleagues and former students. The volume’s guest editor is Joseph Tanke, who earned master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from BC. More from BC News.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Boston College Authors
Tagged philosophy, Philosophy Department
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A guiding light
Boston College alumnus Steve Pemberton is the author of The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World (Zondervan, 2021). He writes about what he calls “human lighthouses”—the mentors, teachers, friends, and colleagues who selflessly guide us along life’s voyage. Book trailer. One of the quietly heroic people Pemberton highlights in his book is fellow Boston College Welles Crowther, who saved the lives of strangers on 9/11. Pemberton is also the author of a memoir, A Chance in the World, which chronicles his journey from a childhood spent in cruel foster homes to an adulthood of happiness and success. Learn more about Pemberton and The Lighthouse Effect in a Q&A from Boston College Magazine.
A journey from campus to war and back
War College, a new novel written by Thomas Barnico, tells the story of Jack Dunne, a student at an elite university who leaves campus to serve in the Vietnam War. War College depicts the various personal and political challenges faced by Dunne as he balances his duties as an Army intelligence officer with the anti-war sentiments of his friends back home. Barnico is a 1980 graduate of BC Law School and served as an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts for 30 years. He is a faculty member at BC Law, teaching the Attorney General Civil Litigation Program and Seminar and the Administrative Law Externship Seminar. More from BC Law Magazine.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Boston College Authors
Tagged Boston College Law School, novel, war
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War, reinvented and endless
Legal scholar and historian Samuel Moyn will give a talk on his new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MacMillan, 2021), on November 10 at 7 p.m. (ET). His presentation will be in webinar format followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. Humane explores the question: What if efforts to make war more ethical—to ban torture and limit civilian casualties—have only shored up the military enterprise and made it sturdier? Moyn looks back at more than a century of arguments about the ethics of using force and the post-9/11 shift of the U.S. Moyn contends that as American wars have become more humane, they have also become endless. Moyn is Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University. His other publications include The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Christian Human Rights, and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World. He also has written for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Moyn’s appearance is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series and co-sponsored by the International Studies Program and the Global Citizenships Project. Pre-registration is required.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
Tagged foreign policy, International Studies, military
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Spiritual nourishment
Homilies in a New Key is a newly published collection of homilies by Boston College Professor Emeritus of Theology Harvey D. Egan, S.J., that rethink–creatively but in an orthodox way–significant aspects of Christianity. They are the product of Fr. Egan’s more than 60 years of Jesuit spirituality, philosophical-theological studies, graduate and undergraduate university teaching, scholarly research and publishing, as well as pastoral experience. The homilies, according to Fr. Egan, reflect years of prayerfully contemplating and thinking deeply about the great Christian heritage through the lens provided by the Second Vatican Council, the current state of biblical, historical, and theological scholarship—as well contemporary issues arising in American culture. Fr. Egan credits as inspiration the philosophical-theological thinking of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, the historical work of Bernard McGinn on the Christian mystical tradition, and the biblical scholarship of N. T. Wright. The homilies contained in Homilies in a New Key, focus on special liturgical feasts, on Jesus Christ, on spiritual topics, on the feasts of saints, and on special family occasions. Fr. Egan writes in the book’s introduction that these homilies may serve as guides for other homilists or for those who teach homiletics, adding “I sincerely pray that these homilies will help [the reader] to know Christ better, stir you to love him more deeply, and to follow him more closely.”
An environmental call to arms
Acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog, an alumnus of Boston College, presents four decades of his ground-breaking photography in the new book, The Human Element: A Time Capsule from the Anthropocene (Rizzoli, 2021). Balog has traveled well over a million miles from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and this volume presents 350 of his most iconic photographs, offering—literally—an unmatched view of the world. His photography and essays highlight that human needs, behaviors, and technologies are radically changing the nature of nature. The Human Element has been called Balog’s “magnum opus on the human impact on our planet” and “an environmental call to arms.” Balog writes: “In damaging nature, we are damaging ourselves. In protecting nature, we are protecting ourselves.” The Human Element features an essay by Anne Wilkes Tucker, curator emerita of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and foreword by James Fallows, longtime writer for the Atlantic and award-winning author. Balog is the author of eight books. His projects include the award-winning films “The Human Element” and “Chasing Ice,” and the Extreme Ice Survey, the most extensive photographic study of glaciers ever conducted.
Mystērion
Mystērion: The Theology Journal of Boston College is a newly launched undergraduate journal featuring essays by students from Boston College and beyond that address important—and difficult—theological questions. BC students Amanda Garza ’22, Paige McDonald ’23, Sean O’Neil ’23, and Connor Thomson ’23 all contributed to the inaugural issue, which explored the relationship of feminist theology to American religion, the historiography of the Salem Witch Trials, the role of prayer and language in the human experience, the Catholic Church’s evolving position on questions of church and state, and how comparative theology can help us better understand human suffering and liberation, among other topics. Senior Dennis J. Wieboldt III serves as the journal’s editor-in-chief and Walsh Professor of Bioethics Andrea Vicini, S.J., is the faculty advisor. Read more in BC News.
Posted in Boston College Authors, Students
Tagged scholarship, theology, Theology Department
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Second chances
On her own after years in foster care, Cass Macklin finds herself broke, homeless, scared to death, and pregnant. Determined to build a stable life for herself and her child, Cass turns to the one person with the means to help her, the baby’s uncle—a professional baseball player with problems of his own. Cass is the protagonist in Catch Us When We Fall (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2021), the latest novel from bestselling author and Boston College graduate Juliette Fay. It is a story about second chances, redemption, and the power of hope. Fay’s previous novels, which have been translated into more than five languages, include Shelter Me, City of Flickering Light, and The Tumbling Turner Sisters, among others. Fay spoke with her hometown newspaper about Catch Us When We Fall.
BC Bookmarks 