UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Zahm Lecture

Zahm Lecture Featuring Marilynne Robinson, Sept. 11

Renowned author and Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson will present the 2019 Zahm Lecture, “Wisdom and Knowledge,” on Wednesday, September 11, at 7:15 p.m., in the Chiles Center. Robinson will speak about wonder and the absolute necessity of the humanities, faith, and reason as partners in understanding the world.

Robinson was the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by former President Barack Obama, for “her grace and intelligence in writing.” In 2016 she was awarded the Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award in American Fiction, as well as the Dayton Peace Prize’s Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2013, she was awarded South Korea’s Pak Kyong-ni Prize for her contribution to international literature. She is the author of Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel, Housekeeping, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Robinson’s nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, and Mother Country, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Robinson, professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for 25 years.

The Zahm Lecture, which annually kicks off the academic year, addresses important issues in American Catholic higher education, and honors Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century, who was one of University of Portland’s founders.

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at X7702 or garaventa@up.edu.

2018 Zahm Lecture, Sept. 12

Thomas Landy will present the 2018 Zahm Lecture, “A Guide to College in 8 Contradictions,” on Wednesday, September 12, at 7:15 p.m. in Buckley Center Auditorium. The talk is sponsored by the Garaventa Center, and is free and open to the public. In his talk Landy asks, at a time when people have extraordinary access to information at their fingertips, and vacillate between polarized, ideological certainties and relativistic uncertainty whether there is any such thing as truth worth seeking, and critics left and right question the value of a university education, what’s a student to do? Landy, who is congenitally wary of canned advice, shares why, from his experience, this a better time to be a learner than you might think. So how do you take advantage of the opportunity?

Landy is director of the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross. A sociologist by training, he researches Catholic life and practice in all corners of globe, exploring remarkably diverse ways that Catholics practice their faith and see the world. For 25 years he has served as director of Collegium, a faculty development program that helps participants from Catholic colleges and universities to reimagine their vocations and to think about how their work serves their students, their schools, and the world.

The Zahm Lecture, which serves as the keynote for the academic year, addresses the important issues surrounding American Catholic education and honors Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at x7702 or garaventa@up.edu, or visit up.edu/garaventa/events.

2017 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education, Sept. 6

The 2017 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education will take place on Wednesday, September 6, at 7:15 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Christine Firer Hinze, PhD, Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University, will present “Against the Grain: Could Zeal for Solidarity be UP’s Gift for our Fractious Time?” The Zahm Lecture is free and open to all.

Drawing from the Holy Cross legacy in dialogue with modern Catholic social thought, Firer Hinze proposes that zeal for solidarity may offer a frame for education in faith sorely needed in today’s world. Firer Hinze is Director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University. Her teaching and research focus on foundational and applied ethical issues, with special emphasis on the dynamics of social transformation, Catholic social thought, and economic and work justice for women, families, and vulnerable groups. Her recent publications include Glass Ceilings and Dirt Floors: Women, Work, & the Global Economy (2015), and essays in Theological Studies, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Association of America, and The Journal of Catholic Social Thought.

The Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education was established in 1999 to honor Rev. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Zahm, superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the nascent University. The Zahm lecture honors both his memory and the legacy of Holy Cross priests and brothers on The Bluff by addressing important issues surrounding American Catholic education.

For more information or ADA accommodations, contact Sarah Nuxoll, Garaventa Center, at 7702 or garaventa@up.edu, or visit the Zahm Lecture website here.

2016 Zahm Lecture Podcast Now Available

cosmos-002The Garaventa Center has received many requests for access to the recent Zahm Lecture by Sister Ilia Delio OSF, “Cosmology, Catholicity and Consciousness: Why Wholeness Matters.” A downloadable podcast of that talk, as well as most of the other talks from recent years, is available in the Archives section of the  Center’s website at www.up.edu/garaventa. Follow this direct link for the 2016 Zahm Lecture, and while you’re there, check out Fr. Charlie’s weekly reflections on the Sunday Mass readings and talks by many of the speakers hosted by the Garaventa Center in the past three years.

2016 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education, Sept. 22

Ilia-Delio 2-3The 2016 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education will take place on Thursday, September 22, at 7:15 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF, a Franciscan sister and American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, will present “Cosmology, Catholicity and Consciousness: Why Wholeness Matters.” The Zahm Lecture is free and open to all.

Taking her cue from Laudato Si’, Sr. Delio will explore a new understanding of catholicity today by drawing on insights from quantum physics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology and the nascence of a third millennium theology.

Sr. Delio currently holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, and is the author of seventeen books, including Care for Creation (coauthored with Keith Warner and Pamela Woods) which won two Catholic Press Book Awards in 2009, first place for social concerns and second place in spirituality. Her book The Emergent Christ won a third place Catholic Press Book Award in 2011 for Science and Religion. Her recent books include The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love (Orbis, 2013), which received the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a third place Catholic Press Association Award for Faith and Science.

The Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education was established in 1999 to honor Rev. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest and scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Zahm, superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the nascent University. The Zahm lecture honors both his memory and the legacy of Holy Cross priests and brothers on The Bluff by addressing important issues surrounding American Catholic education.

For more information, contact Sarah Nuxoll, Garaventa Center, at 7702 or garaventa@up.edu.

2015 Zahm Lecture Features Author Tim Egan, Sept. 17

eganThe 2015 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education will take place on Thursday, September 17, at 7:15 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Best-selling author Tim Egan, winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, will present “Francis and Francis: How a Pope and Saint Changed the World, One Heart at a Time.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

Egan, a resident of Seattle, is the Northwest correspondent for The New York Times and columnist for the NYT’s weekly “Opinionator.” In 2006, Egan won the National Book Award, considered the nation’s highest literary honor, for The Worst Hard Time, a history of people who lived through the Dust Bowl. In 2001, he won the Pulitzer Prize as part of a team of reporters who wrote the series “How Race Is Lived in America.”

The Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education was established in 1999 to honor Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest/scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Zahm, superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the nascent University. The Zahm lecture honors both his memory and the legacy of Holy Cross priests and brothers on The Bluff by addressing important issues surrounding American Catholic education.

For more information, contact Sarah Nuxoll, Garaventa Center, at 7702 or garaventa@up.edu.

2014 Zahm Lecture Features Fr. Kevin Grove, C.S.C.

groveThe 2014 Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education will take place on Thursday, September 11, at 7:15 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Rev. Kevin G. Grove, C.S.C., will present “Memory, Desire and Searching for God.” His lecture is free and open to faculty, staff, students, and the public; refreshments will be served. The Zahm Lecture serves as the keynote for the University’s academic year.

Father Grove is a Gates Scholar and is studying philosophical theology at the University of Cambridge. Using resources from Scripture and the writings of St. Augustine, his presentation will explore two of the most important ways people attempt to describe how it is we can know and experience God: memory and desire. He is co-editor of The Cross, Our Only Hope, a collection of spiritual reflections of Holy Cross priests and brothers on their religious order, and is the author of You Have Redeemed the World and the recently published Basil Moreau: Essential Writings.

The Zahm Lecture in American Catholic Education was established in 1999 to honor Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., an eminent Holy Cross priest/scientist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Zahm, superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the nascent University. The Zahm lecture honors both his memory and the legacy of Holy Cross priests and brothers on The Bluff by addressing important issues surrounding American Catholic education.

For more information, please contact Karen Eifler, eifler@up.edu, co-director of the Garaventa Center, which hosts the lecture.

Jud Newborn, Zahm Lecture

1aZahmLecture150Renowned author and cultural anthropologist Jud Newborn will deliver the Zahm Lecture, the keynote address for the University of Portland’s academic year, on Thursday, October 10, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center Auditorium. Newborn’s presentation, “Speaking Truth to Power,” is about heroes in the fight for human rights in the present day, and highlights the 70th anniversary of the student-led White Rose anti-Nazi resistance movement. His multimedia presentations, which include images, music, and dramatic readings, have been lauded by publications such as Lifestyles Magazine as having “dramatic power and a deeply felt passion that leaves his audiences both moved and exhilarated.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

The White Rose was the name of a group of students whose activities made up one of the few effective protest movements against Nazi Germany by German citizens. Newborn has written for both The New York Times and Jerusalem Post and helped build New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, serving as its founding historian and curator. He currently serves as Special Projects Curator for the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY.

The Zahm Lecture was established in 1999 to honor Rev. John Zahm, C.S.C., who, in his position as superior of the Holy Cross in America when the University was founded in 1901, contributed counsel, money, and Holy Cross men to the University. Previous Zahm lecturers include former Newsweek religion editor Ken Woodward, and science writer and Stonehill College professor emeritus of physics Chet Raymo. For more information contact Jamie Powell, Garaventa Center, at 7702 or powell@up.edu.