McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross

In less than one week's time, Executive Director Christina Swarns and exoneree Marvin Anderson are visiting the campus from the , an organization that, since 1992, has been at the forefront of criminal justice reform using DNA and other scientific advancements to prove wrongful conviction.
During their talk, they'll discuss challenges we face to prevent wrongful convictions and how we can create fairer, more compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.
Don't miss this event in Hogan Ballroom on Tuesday, October 24th at 7:30 p.m.

How is race discussed in religious studies? And how is religion talked about in ethnic studies? Through a focus on Islam and Muslims in the United States, this lecture explores the intersections, evasions, omissions, and errors that occur in the study of race and religion in the two fields. Sylvia Chan-Malik, associate professor in the departments of American and women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, offers a brief genealogy of each field, explains the challenges confronting scholars working at these junctures, and argues for race/religion as a category of analysis across the humanities and social sciences.

Join us in Rehm Library, Thursday at 4:30.

Income inequality has increased in most developed and developing countries since the 1980s. Was increased international trade between rich and emerging economies the main culprit? Join us in Rehm Library, this Wednesday at 4:30 for a lecture with Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Nina Pavcnik, Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies and professor of economics at Dartmouth College.

How are faith and migration reshaping parishes and communities in America's heartland? For her book "Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland," Kristy Nabhan-Warren spent years interviewing Iowans—both native-born and recent immigrants from Central America, Africa and Asia—who work in the meatpacking industry. Their stories expose how faith-based aspirations for mutual understanding blend uneasily with rampant economic exploitation and racial biases. Still, these new and old midwesterners say that a mutual language of faith and morals brings them together more than any of them would have ever expected.

Monday, February 27 | 4:30 p.m. | Rehm Library | College of the Holy Cross

Microsoft's new AI-powered search engine chatbot claims it can "feel and think." Is it possible? The McFarland Center recently hosted Sylvester Johnson, associate vice provost for public interest technology at Virginia Tech, at the College of the Holy Cross for a lecture that explores the limits of AI and the "science of the soul." Watch the lecture here: https://youtu.be/TMSwta7RgDI

The new Bing told our reporter it ‘can feel and think things.’ The AI-powered chatbot called itself Sydney, claimed to have its ‘own personality’ — and objected to being interviewed for this article.

Tonight at 7:30, acclaimed poet and professor of law Lawrence Joseph delivers the Vocation of the Writer Annual Lecture in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture is free and open to the public. Plus, Bedlam Book Cafe will be selling copies of his latest book, "A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems," with a book signing to follow. Join us!

What is religions' answer to evil and sin? In today's lecture, our International Visiting Jesuit Fellow, Rev. Joachim Zoundi, S.J. evaluates African Traditional Religions, including the traditional, indigenous African philosophy of Ubuntu, as well as the Christian revelation for the fullness of their response to evil and sin.

Fr. Zoundi is a lecturer of systematic theology at Hekima University College, in Nairobi, Kenya. A native of Burkina Faso, he is researching a characteristic of interpersonal relationships in the country that make peace and reconciliation possible among different ethnic and tribal groups. At Holy Cross, he is teaching a Religious Studies course called "Humanity in Uncertain Times."

Event info: http://bit.ly/2Ei1Okp

College of the Holy Cross President Vincent Rougeau and Canon Angus Ritchie, director of the Center for Theology and Community in the UK, led a seminar for faculty yesterday on their vision of "Inclusive Populism" that could address the global climate crisis. Today, Fr. Ritchie presents his lecture to the wider College community. Join us in Rehm Library at 4 p.m. for "Beyond Activism: Building Broad-based Alliances to Tackle the Climate Crisis."

Event info: http://bit.ly/2Ei1Okp

Join us Monday as Rev. Selva Rathinam, S.J., one of our International Visiting Jesuit Fellows in residence at Holy Cross this semester, applies concepts of the postcolonial method to interpret the text of the last Servant Song in Isaiah from the point of view of the Dalits, the oppressed people of India’s lowest caste. Fr. Rathinam, a Jesuit priest ordained in Bangalore, is a professor and the former president of Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pontifical Atheneum of Philosophy and Religion in Pune, India.

4 PM, Monday, Feb. 6, Rehm Library
Event info: http://bit.ly/2Ei1Okp

In an age of intelligent machines and human-machine synthesis (cybernetics), how might we understand the capacity of Artificial Intelligence to think, be sentient or feel pain? Join us at Holy Cross on Monday, Feb. 13, as Sylvester Johnson, founding director of the Virginia Tech Center for Humanities, interprets theoretical claims about the “science of the soul” in the work of Ibn Rushd (Averroës), the 12th-century Islamic scholar of Andalusia who achieved renown as the father of secularism. Johnson leverages Rushd’s distinction between sensing and knowing in order to examine contemporary, sensory-driven AI technology (particularly brain-computer-interface architectures) as a uniquely generative problem of interest for humanists and technical experts alike.

Event info: http://bit.ly/1YUpRH4

Across the last decade, College of the Holy Cross President Vincent D. Rougeau and Canon Angus Ritchie, director of the Centre for Theology and Community and a priest in the Anglican Diocese of London, have worked to explore Pope Francis' vision for an "inclusive populism," a politics rooted in the people, to address the world's greatest challenges. Inclusive populism, they say, can help people build relationships of solidarity at all levels—from the regeneration of their local neighborhoods to the protection of their planet. In a public lecture at the College on February 9, Fr. Ritchie will draw on his experience community organizing in some of England's poorest neighborhoods to show how it can help build a broader-based and more powerful movement for climate action.
Event info: http://bit.ly/2Ei1Okp

We're highly anticipating the opening of the Cantor Art Gallery College of the Holy Cross exhibition "Bringing the Holy Land Home" and pleased to be cosponsoring a symposium with the New England Medieval Consortium - NEMC on March 25. Schedule and registration coming soon.

A restored medieval depiction of the Crusades shows how England embraced Islamic culture (RNS) — Floor tiles from Chertsey Abbey in England, the subject of a new exhibition, resemble Muslim and Byzantine silks that crusaders brought back as souvenirs.