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Robert Samuels: His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
September 13, 2023

Award-winning national political enterprise reporter and staff writer for听The New Yorker,听Robert Samuels is the lead author of the highly-anticipated and Pulitzer Prize-winning landmark biography听His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

This stunning new work is a poignant exploration of the life of George Floyd and how his tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. It metaphorically uses George Floyd's story to put into context America's deeply troubled history of institutional racism. Inspired by听The Washington Post's award-winning six-part series 鈥淕eorge Floyd鈥檚 America,鈥� the book delves deeper into how systemic racism influenced Floyd's life and legacy. Drawing on over 400 interviews, including with friends and family who knew him best and those who were with him when he died, it provides insight into who he was, how inequality and insufferable systemic pressures changed him, and how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.

During his 12-year tenure as a highly-regarded reporter for听The Washington Post, Robert Samuels traveled to 41 states and three countries, chronicling how political discussions in the nation's capital affect the lives of everyday Americans. He has also been a guest essayist and serves as the听笔辞蝉迟's go-to commentator on figure skating.

His work has been a part of teams that have won the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the National Association of Black Journalists Award for Investigative Reporting. He has also been a finalist for the Toner Prize for National Political Reporting and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and he has won several statewide awards for his work while at听The Miami Herald. As an adjunct faculty member at Wake Forest University, Mr. Samuels teaches a seminar on the history of race reporting and its impact on democracy.听

Cosponsored by the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program.

Suzanne Simard: Finding the Mother Tree
September 27, 2023

Suzanne Simard is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and the author of the book听Finding the Mother Tree. She is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence and has been hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls in James Cameron鈥檚听Avatar) and her TED Talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Suzanne is known for her work on how trees interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks, which has led to the recognition that forests have hub trees, or Mother Trees, which are large, highly connected trees that play an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest. Her current research investigates how these complex relationships contribute to forest resiliency, adaptability, and recovery and has far-reaching implications for how to manage and heal forests from human impacts, including climate change. Suzanne has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and presented at conferences around the world. She has communicated her work to a wide audience through interviews, documentary films, and her TED Talk 鈥淗ow trees talk to one another.鈥�

Cosponsored by the Boston College Environmental Studies Program, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Biology Department and The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.

Matthew Desmond: Poverty, By America
October 11, 2023

MacArthur 鈥淕enius鈥� and Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond was launched onto the national stage as an expert on contemporary American poverty with the publication of his Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller听Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Combining years of embedded fieldwork with painstakingly gathered data,听Evicted听transformed our understanding of inequity and economic exploitation in America. A former member of the Harvard Society of Fellows, he is also the author of the award-winning book听On the Fireline, the coauthor of two books on race, and the editor of a collection of studies on severe deprivation in America. He has written essays on educational inequality, dangerous work, political ideology, race and social theory, and the inner-city housing market. His work has been supported by the Gates, Horowitz, Ford, JBP, MacArthur, National Science, Russell Sage, and W.T. Grant Foundations, as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He is a Contributing Writer for听The New York Times Magazine, and his writing has appeared in听The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker听补苍诲听The Chicago Tribune. Desmond鈥檚 latest book, the instant #1听New York Times听产别蝉迟蝉别濒濒别谤听Poverty, by America听investigates why the United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In clear and compelling prose, Desmond draws on history research, and original reporting to conclude that poverty persists in this nation because the rest of us benefit from it. Those of us who are financially secure knowingly and unknowingly exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. Prioritizing the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, our welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Praised by听Esquire听as 鈥渁nother paradigm-shifting inquiry into America鈥檚 dark heart,鈥澨�Poverty, by America听introduces Desmond鈥檚 startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty: he calls on us to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.听

Cosponsored by the Boston College Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, the PULSE Program for Service Learning, and the Sociology Department.

Linda Villarosa: Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation
October 18, 2023

Journalist听Linda听Villarosa听is a contributing writer for听The New York Times Magazine, where she covers race, inequality and public health. A former executive editor of听Essence Magazine, she is the author of the book听Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives听and on the Health of Our Nation.

Under the Skin听is a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America by revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and public health. In 2018,听Villarosa鈥檚听New York Times Magazine听article on maternal and infant mortality, 鈥淲hy America鈥檚 Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis鈥� caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But听Villarosa鈥檚 article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth-grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

A member of the Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA) Hall of Fame,听Villarosa听has been recognized with numerous awards from organizations including The American Medical Writers鈥� Association, the Arthur Ashe Institute, Lincoln University, the New York Association of Black Journalists, the National Women鈥檚 Political Caucus, and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.

Villarosa听is the editor of听Body & Soul: The Black Women鈥檚 Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being. Her novel,听Passing for Black, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. She is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she is a professor and journalist in residence. She also teaches journalism, English, and Black Studies at the City College of New York.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Park Street Corporation Speaker Series.

Kate Brown: "The Interminable Cycles of Chernobyl鈥檚 Catastrophes: War, Accident, and War Again"
October 25, 2023

Kate Brown is the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of several prize-winning histories, including听Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters听(Oxford 2013). Her latest book听Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future听(Norton 2019), translated into six languages, won the Marshall Shulman and Reginald Zelnik Prizes for the best book in East European History, plus the Silver Medal for Laura Shannon Book Prize.听Manual for Survival听was also a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pushkin House Award and the Ryszard Kapu艣ci艅ski Award for Literary Reportage.

Cosponsored by the Boston College History Department and The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.

Fintan O鈥橳oole: 鈥淧olitical Heaney鈥�
November 16, 2023

Fintan O鈥橳oole, one of Ireland鈥檚 leading public intellectuals, is a columnist for听The Irish Times听and Leonard L. Milberg 鈥�53 visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University. He also contributes to听The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and other international publications. His books on theater include works on William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Murphy. His books on politics include the bestsellers听We Don鈥檛 Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland;听Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain;听Ship of Fools; and听Enough is Enough. In 2011,听The Observer听named O鈥橳oole one of 鈥淏ritain鈥檚 top 300 intellectuals.鈥� He has received the A.T. Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism, the Millennium Social Inclusion Award, the Journalist of the Year award from TV3 Studios in 2010, the Orwell Prize, the European Press Prize, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the spring of 2023. In 2021, he published the #1 bestseller听We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland, which won the Book of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was selected for the New York Times's 鈥�10 Best Books of 2022.鈥� O鈥橳oole鈥檚听History of Ireland in 100 Objects, which covers 100 highly charged artifacts from the last 10,000 years, is currently the basis for Ireland鈥檚 postage stamps. He has recently been appointed official biographer of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.听

This听Lowell听lecture will herald the opening of听Seamus Heaney鈥檚 Afterlives, Boston College鈥檚 international symposium marking the tenth anniversary of the poet鈥檚 death.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Irish Studies Program and with the support of an ILA Major Grant.

Roya Hakakian: "The Plight of Women in Israel and Iran, and the Silence of Feminists"
January 31, 2024

Roya Hakakian is an Iranian-American writer, journalist, and public speaker. Her opinion columns, essays, and book reviews appear in leading English language publications including听The New York Times,听The New York Review of Books听补苍诲听The Atlantic. A founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, she has spoken on a variety of news outlets, from CNN鈥檚 Fareed Zakaria GPS to MSN51茶馆, as well as in Washington D.C. for the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and the State Department with U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken. Her latest book听A Beginner鈥檚 Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious听has been called a contemporary Tocquevlllian account by听The Wall Street Journal听补苍诲听The Boston Globe. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship among many other prizes and has been called one of 鈥渢he most important activists, academics and journalists of her generation.鈥�

Cosponsored by the Boston College International Studies Program, Islamic Civilization and Societies Program, and with the support of an ILA Major Grant.

Annual Candlemas Lecture: James Alison: 鈥淐atholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures鈥�
February 07, 2024

James Alison is a Catholic theologian, priest, and author who has written on issues of polarization, reconciliation, and LGBTQ people. He has studied, lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Spain, the United States, and his native England. He earned his doctorate in theology from the Jesuit Faculty in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1994 and is a systematic theologian by training. He is the author of several books, including听Knowing Jesus, Raising Abel, The Joy of Being Wrong, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay, On Being Liked, Undergoing God, Broken Hearts听补苍诲听New Creations: Intimations of a Great Reversal. His most recent book,听听Jesus the Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice,听follows the insight into desire from French thinker Ren茅 Girard. He serves as a Fellow and Chair of the Education Committee at IMITATIO, an organization focusing on Ren茅 Girard鈥檚 insights into mimetic desire.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Theology Department.

Poetry Days Presents Joy Harjo: 鈥淚ndigenous Poetry and Native Literature鈥�
February 21, 2024

In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. Harjo鈥檚 nine books of poetry include听Weaving Sundown in a Scarlett Light, An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems,听补苍诲听She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs,听Crazy Brave听and听Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her 鈥減oet-warrior鈥� road. She has edited several anthologies of Native American writing including听When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through 鈥� A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and Living Nations, Living Words, the companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project. Her many writing awards include the 2022 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is artist-in-residence for the Bob Dylan Center. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is听I Pray For My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Poetry Days Series, American Studies Program, English Department, Creative Writing Discretionary Fund, and the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America.

Daniel Alarc贸n: 鈥淪tories Everywhere: Listening to Latin America鈥�
February 28, 2024

Daniel Alarc贸n is a writer and radio producer exploring the social, cultural, and linguistic ties that connect people across Latin America and Spanish-speaking communities in the Americas. His powerful narrative storytelling鈥攊n English and Spanish, fiction and nonfiction, print and audio鈥攃hronicles individual lives and underreported topics against the backdrop of broader geopolitical and historical forces in the United States and Central and South America.

He received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. He was Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College and an investigative reporting fellow at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 2014 and is currently an associate professor in the School of Journalism. Since 2012, he has served as co-founder and executive producer of听Radio Ambulante, and he is a contributing writer at听The New Yorker, where he covers Latin America. He is the author of the novels听At Night We Walk in Circles听补苍诲听Lost City Radio, short story collections听The King is Always Above the People听补苍诲听War by Candlelight, and his writing has appeared in听Granta, Harper鈥檚 Magazine, and听Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and the MacArthur 鈥淕enius鈥� Grant in 2021.

This event is supported by an ILA Major Grant.

Ada Ferrer: Cuba: An American History
March 13, 2024

Ada Ferrer is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning听Cuba: An American History. The book chronicles more than five hundred years of Cuban history and its relations with the United States. She is also the author of听Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868鈥�1898, which won the Berkshire Book Prize for the best first book by a woman in any field of history, and听Freedom鈥檚 Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University as well as the Frederick Katz, Wesley Logan, and James A. Rawley prizes from the American Historical Association. Her essay 鈥淢y Brother鈥檚 Keeper,鈥� published by听The New Yorker, tells the story of her and her family鈥檚 relationship with the Cuban Revolution. In her lectures and keynote talks, Ferrer discusses Cuba鈥檚 past and its complex ties with the United States, giving audiences unexpected insights into the history of both countries and helping them to imagine a new relationship with Cuba.

Ferrer graduated from Vassar College with an AB degree in English. She holds a Master鈥檚 in History from University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in History from the University of Michigan. She has taught at New York University since 1995, where she is currently the Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She was a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow and has received support for her research from organizations including the Dorothy and Lewis Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission, and more. She is also the co-curator of 鈥淰isionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom,鈥� an exhibit on carpenter and artist Jos茅 Antonio Aponte, that has been housed at NYU, Duke University and Havana鈥檚 Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales.

Cosponsored by the Boston College History Department, Romance Languages and Literatures Department, the Heinz Bluhm Memorial Lecture Series, and the McMullen Museum of Art.

Bill Rauch: 鈥淎daptation: A Lifetime of Building Bridges鈥�
April 03, 2024

Bill Rauch is the inaugural Artistic Director of The Perelman Center for the Performing Arts (PAC NYC) at the World Trade Center. His work has been featured on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning production of Robert Schenkkan鈥檚 鈥淎ll The Way鈥� and its companion play 鈥淭he Great Society,鈥� as well as at many of the largest regional theaters in the country.

From 2007 to 2019, Bill was Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the country鈥檚 oldest and largest rotating repertory theater, where he directed seven world premieres as well as innovative productions of classic musicals, including a queer reenvisioning of 鈥淥klahoma!鈥� Among his initiatives at OSF, he committed to commissioning new plays that dramatized moments of change in American history. 鈥淎merican Revolutions: the United States History Cycle鈥� resulted in such plays as Lynn Nottage鈥檚 鈥淪weat鈥� (winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize), Paula Vogel鈥檚 鈥淚ndecent,鈥� the 1491s鈥� 鈥淏etween Two Knees,鈥� Lisa Loomer鈥檚 鈥淩oe,鈥� Universes鈥� 鈥淧arty People,鈥� Culture Clash鈥檚 鈥淎merican Night,鈥� and Robert Schenkkan鈥檚 plays about Lyndon B. Johnson.

Bill is also co-founder of Cornerstone Theater Company, where he served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006, directing more than 40 productions, most of them collaborations with diverse communities nationwide. He has directed world premieres at Portland Center Stage, Center Theater Group, and South Coast Rep, as well as at American Repertory Theater, Yale Rep, the Guthrie, Arena Stage, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, and Great Lakes Theater Festival. His production of 鈥淭he Pirates of Penzance鈥� performed at Portland Opera. He was a Claire Trevor Professor at the University of California Irvine and has also taught at the University of Southern California and UCLA.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Theatre Department, English Department, and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.听