2010-11 Siena Season

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received...” writes St. Paul. But tradition is not merely recollection of the past, it is a way of living toward the future. So, how does a faith tradition survive over time? How might it grow, develop, and retain continuity—across history and within a single person’s lifetime? Drawing on the expertise of parents and theologians, educators and sociologists, religious leaders and cultural critics, the 2010-2011 Siena Center season examines the meaning of faith moving from generation to generation.

Fall 2010

Spring 2011

Finding Sacred Space in Cyberspace

Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Auditorium, Priory Campus

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Cathleen Falsani is an award-winning religion columnist and contributing editor at Sojourners Magazine. Like many folks who skew more toward Generation X than Generation Z, Falsani began her foray onto Facebook as an exercise in ennui abatement.  But the death of a college friend created a communion of twenty souls all over the world who share their lives, hopes, fears, struggles, and joys together in cyberspace. She tells a story of an absolutely authentic, transformative phenomenon that has truly enlivened her faith and asks, “Might the Spirit of God abide in the electrons that float through cyberspace?” Her latest book, The Thread: Rediscovering Faith and Friendship on Facebook will be released in the summer 2010.

Back to top

Caritas et Veritas Lecture

Thursday, September 30, 2010, 6:00 p.m.

Lund Auditorium, Main Campus

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Timothy Radcliffe, OP is the former Master of the Dominican Order. He currently lives at Blackfriars, Oxford, and lectures internationally. His most recent books are What is the Point of Being a Christian? and Why Go To Church? In this lecture, which will close Dominican University’s Caritas et Veritas Symposium, Radcliffe will address the relationship of love and truth, and their meaning for the 21st century. Can there be truth without love, or love without truth?

Back to top

What Was Handed On To Me — Passing the Faith from One Generation to the Next

Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Auditorium, Priory Campus

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Melissa Musick Nussbaum and Anna Keating, a mother-daughter team, are both religious educators and widely published essayists on spirituality.  In a time when "delegate" and "outsourcing" are common verbs, there are still some things that can only be done by hand, handed from one person to another.  As St. Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received...."  It is human work on a human scale, giving over what can only be modeled, not compelled, taught, and not directed from a distance.  Parenting and faith formation have that in common; they are labors, done by hand and in person.

Back to top

Mazzuchelli Lecture - Dominican by Adoption: Growing in a Life of Service

Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 5:00 p.m.

Martin Recital Hall, Main Campus

Admission is free

William Lies, CSC, PhD is director of the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, and a fellow of both the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Focusing on the role of service-learning in Dominican higher education, this talk will honor Samuel Mazzuchelli and all that he brought to life It will be rooted in Catholic social teaching and all that implies for our discernment of and formation in our respective vocations… and for lifelong service in the Church and the world.

Back to top

Albertus Magnus Lecture - Genomic Research and the Catholic Moral Tradition: Opportunities for a New Synergy Between Science and Religion

Thursday, November 18, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Auditorium, Priory Campus

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Kevin T. FitzGerald, SJ, PhD (molecular genetics), PhD (bioethics), Lauler Chair of Catholic Health Care Ethics in the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University, and associate professor in the Department of Oncology at the Georgetown University Medical Center, will review the benefits that genetic and genomic research could bring to our nation and our world, and the likelihood of achieving such benefits. He will follow with an ethical evaluation of proposed research and suggest an approach that includes religious perspectives in order to increase the chances of delivering real benefits to individuals and to the global community.

Back to top

Advent Lecture - Is God’s Reign of Peace Really Possible?

Thursday, December 2, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Auditorium, Priory Campus

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Dianne Bergant, CSA, PhD is professor of Biblical Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. The Isaian passages read during the Sundays of Advent contain a flavor of anticipation. God initiates a prophetic proclamation of hope for a people in dire straits, suffering some form of deprivation, and discouraged with life. God promises such people a new era of peace and harmony.

Back to top

Life-Long Aging and the Baby Boom Phenomenon

Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Priory Auditorium

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Martha Jacob, PhD is assistant professor of sociology and Specialization Coordinator in the field of gerontology at Dominican University. A gerontologist with a “life course” perspective views growing older as a nonlinear trajectory that takes us from birth to death – as unique individuals with personal agency, but also as individuals who are, in the aggregate, greatly influenced by the systemic and structural forces of our societies. In the very near future, a fifth of our population will be age 65 and older.  What issues, concerns, and needs will we have to address as a nation when those unique individuals who are Baby Boomers hold the power to themselves influence or possibly change those structural forces?

Back to top

Tradition and the Fabric of Life: How Ordinary People Future Our Past

Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Priory Auditorium

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Orlando Espin, PhD is professor of systematic theology at the University of San Diego. He also founded and directs USD's Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism.  Tradition is one of the necessary witnesses to God's revelation (the other is the Bible). Yet Tradition exists as it is "traditioned" by ordinary people from generation to generation and from place to place, across history and across cultures.  This lecture explores the true and indispensible role the people of God play in traditioning.

Back to top

The Formative Years

Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 7:00 p.m. 
Priory Auditorium

Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Dennis Kirchen, EdD is associate professor of early childhood education at Dominican University. The early years of childhood are characterized by rapid developmental changes. While some of these changes are easy to see, others are not so obvious. Highlights of cognitive and social development for children aged birth through pre-adolescence will be discussed. See why they are called the formative years. Elizabeth Jeep, PhD, associate director of the Siena Center, will offer a response to Dr. Kirchen’s lecture.

Back to top

Is Dreaming Illegal? Seeking Sustainable Solutions

Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Peace Through Commerce, Brennan School of Business

Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

Priory Auditorium

Admission is free. Donations accepted.

  Join us for an evening of reviewing immigration in the U.S. today.  Panelists will discuss demographic and economic implications, the latest local and national legal implications for immigrants, the theological and social justice considerations regarding undocumented immigrants, and immigrant education and community action.  Panelists include Mark Lopez, PhD, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, DC; Craig Mousin, JD, MDiv, Ombudsman, DePaul University, Chicago; Elizabeth Collier, PhD, Brennan School of Business, Dominican University; and Elena Segura, Immigrant Affairs & Immigrant Education, Archdiocese of Chicago.

Back to top

 

Radical Disciple:  Fr. Pfleger, St. Sabina Church and the Fight for Social Justice

Co-sponsored by the Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars

Monday, March 21, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Main Campus |Eloise Martin Recital Hall, Fine Arts Building
Admission is $10 – DU students, faculty and staff admitted free

Join us for an evening with legendary South Side pastor, Fr. Michael Pfleger. We will begin with a screening of the documentary, Radical Disciple, a recent film exploring Fr. Pleger's 30+ years of ministry at St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham.  The film's director, Bob Hercules, and Fr. Pfleger's biographer, Bob McClory, will also be there to join in the conversation.  

Back to top 

St. Catherine of Siena Lecture - Young Adult Catholics Today: Finding Power, Passion and Voice

Wednesday, April 6, 2011
7:00 p.m. Prayer, Priory Chapel
7:30 p.m. Lecture, Priory Auditorium
Admission is free

Donna Freitas, PhD is associate professor of religion and Honors College Fellow/Writer in Residence at Hofstra University and a blogger for the Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” panel. She will discuss the state of young adult Catholics, in particular young women, on America's college campuses today. Her talk will include findings from her national study on this topic, published as Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses, as well as her long term work in finding public space for the voices of young adult Catholics to speak on their experiences.

Back to top

Trade vs. Aid: Haiti's Growing Social and Economic Opportunities

Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Peace Through Commerce

Thursday, April 14, 2011, 7:00 p.m. 
Main Campus | Parmer Hall 108, Bluhm Auditorium

Join us for an evening to discuss the growing social and economic opportunities in Haiti.  Presenting will be Steve Hollingworth, chief operating officer and executive vice president of global operations at CARE ; Erica Green from United Nations Association USA; and Most Rev. Thomas Wenski, Archbishop of Miami and former director of the Pierre Toussaint Haitian Catholic Center in Miami. 

Back to top