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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Boston College

Boston College is a coeducational university with undergraduate and graduate students hailing from every state and more than 95 countries. Founded in 1863, it is one of the oldest Jesuit, Catholic universities in the United States.

Since its founding in 1957, the Lowell Humanities Series has brought distinguished writers, artists, performers, and scholars to Boston College. Follow the series on Twitter at @BCLowellHS .

http://www.bc.edu

  • Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: An Irish Disease and/or Global Phenomenon?

    Thu, Mar 24, 2011
    Journalist Patsy McGarry, of *The Irish Times* explores the politics, perceptions, and uniquely Irish aspects of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. McGarry has reported extensively on the Catholic Church's response to various child sexual abuse scandals as documented by the Ferns, Ryan, and Murphy reports.
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    Boston College

  • The Immigrant in the War on Terror

    Wed, Apr 6, 2011
    Author and journalist **Amitava Kumar** probes questions raised by the impact of the war on terror on immigrants going about their daily lives. In his book, *A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, * Kumar looks at the role entrapment has played both on the part of recruitment for terrorist organizations and on the part of the U.S. military, and he examines how the distance can be measured between dominant images of terrorists and the 'displaced provincials' who become involved on the front lines of terrorist organizations. _Part of the Institute for the Liberal Arts' 2010-2012 Race and Culture After 9/11 Lecture Series and Symposium. _ Kumar mentions the artist **Hasan Elahi** in his talk. You can learn more about the artist and how he responded to being placed on the FBI's watch list in [his Ted talk.](https://www.ted.com/talks/hasan_elahi?language=en "")
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    Boston College

  • Noam Chomsky: Language and Other Cognitive Processes

    Fri, Nov 11, 2011
    The nature of human language is still not completely understood. How do infants learn language? How does it fit in with other cognitive processes? Noam Chomsky, noted linguist, philosopher, and social critic explores the complexities of language and its study.
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    Boston College

  • How Poets and Novelists Came to Comfort the Faithful and Strengthen Doubters

    Wed, Nov 16, 2011
    Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, and Judith Wilt, the Newton College Alumnae Professor Emerita, discuss the role of literature in sustaining religious belief. It is not uncommon for modern American Christians to say that writers such as C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and many others, have served as spiritual anchors, fulfilling a need not always met by pastors and theologians. Is this a recent development, and how did this state of affairs arise? What does its existence suggest about the condition of American religious belief and the role of literature in sustaining it? And, is this good or bad news for Christianity?
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    Boston College

  • Andrew Sofer Reads from Wave

    Tue, Oct 25, 2011
    Andrew Sofer, associate professor of English at Boston College, reads from *Wave*, his recently published book of poems. Introduced by Maxim D. Shrayer, Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies.
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    Boston College

  • John Palfrey: Open Access Week Symposium

    Thu, Oct 27, 2011
    "John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, delivers the keynote address at the Open Access Symposium. Open Access literature is digital, online, free to access, and free of most copyright restrictions. Palfrey argues that Open Access allows universities to share their research and make it more wildly available to the general public -- information that would otherwise only be available through paid scholarly journals."
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    Boston College

  • Dubravka Ugresic: Nostalgia, Ostalgia, and Memory Stick

    Thu, Oct 13, 2011
    Croatian-born author Dubravka Ugresic talks about her life during Communist rule in Eastern Europe, 20 years after its collapse. She discusses how we become "archivists of our own lives" and whether the treatment of the past is different in post-Communist countries.
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    Boston College

  • Postmodern Christian Ethics of Peace

    Thu, Apr 28, 2005
    William Murnion, co-editor of *Being and Thought in Aquinas*, examines the "just war" ethic within the context of St. Thomas Aquinas' writings, arguing that it reveals a fundamental incoherence in his philosophy. He reconsiders Christian ethics of peace as they might be applied today to the problem of terrorism.
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    Partner:
    Boston College

  • Passing in Boston: The Story of the Healy Family

    Wed, Dec 4, 2002
    Boston College history professor, James O'Toole discusses his newest book Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920, which documents the extraordinary life of the Healy brothers of Boston. In the mid-1800's, the Healy brothers of Boston, James, Patrick, and Sherwood, looked like the picture of Catholic success. James was bishop of Portland, Maine; Patrick, president of Georgetown University; and Sherwood, chief supervisor of the building of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The Healy's were not typical members of the Boston Catholic elite, but the children of a multiracial slave couple from Georgia.
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    Partner:
    Boston College

  • Evil: The Artist's Response

    Tue, Nov 27, 2001
    A panel of artists engages in a discussion about about how artists respond to evil. This discussion is the second annual dialogue on Belief and Nonbelief in Modern American Culture, sponsored by Boston College and the Atlantic Monthly. The series is modeled after the annual "Chair of the Nonbeliever", sponsored by the archbishop, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini of Milan. It is Martini's contention that "there is evil in each of us; whatever our religion, even in a bishop; a believer and a nonbeliever." The series invites philosophers, authors, psychiatrists, politicians, and artists to talk about their work through the prisms of belief and nonbelief.
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    Partner:
    Boston College
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