MCC Events Archive

On Friday, 22 November 2025, Dr. Jack Stetter (Institute for Research in the Humanities at UW Madison) will give a talk on the subject of Spinoza on the State's Power for War in the Political Treatise. The event, which is open to everyone and does not require advance registration, will be held in Marquette Hall, 105 from 3:30 to 5:00.

Keynote Presentation: Dr. Candi Cann, Associate Professor of Religion, Baylor University

Cultural and religious worldviews deeply impact the ways in which dying, death, and grief are understood and managed. Examining various traditions from a comparative perspective within a medical framework reveals varying and shifting cultural attitudes that are multi-layered and complex. Cann argues that one cannot simply examine religious cultures alone, as they are embedded in a larger social and cultural framework that impacts how dying is managed, how death is defined, and how different conceptions of life after death affect grief. Ultimately, both medical frameworks and religious worldviews intersect and impact one another. Following the keynote address, a reactor panel will discuss how health care teams can apply this information to provide culturally appropriate patient care.

This event, which will place on Friday, 8 November in David A. Straz, Jr. Hall, 100 from 12:00-1:30 will be followed by a reception. 

On Monday, October 14 from 3:30-4:30, Dr. Richard Armenta will discuss "Community-Driven Research to Improve Health Equity for Native Nations." The talk will take place in AMU 157. All are welcome. No registration necessary.  Dr. Armenta's talk is co-sponsored by U-RISE and the MCC.

On Tuesday, October 8 at 11:00 in the Monaghan Ballrooms in the AMU, Steven Millies (Catholic Theological Union) will talk about "Catholic Social Teaching and the 2024 Election." Please register your intention to attend via this link.

Dr. Millies' talk is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, the Department of Theology, the Center for Peacemaking, and the Jesuit community at Marquette.

Phi Beta Kappa Scholar Douglas E. Christie

Tuesday, October 1 and Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Professor Douglas Christie, Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, will offer two talks at Marquette as part of the 2024-2025 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program.

“Thinking Like a Mountain: Contemplative Ecology in the Anthropocene”

Tuesday, October 1.  4 pm.  Raynor Library, Beaumier Suites.

The environmental thinker Aldo Leopold once asked: can we learn to "think like a mountain?" That is, can we learn to recenter our thinking, our ethics, our spiritual practice—beyond our own narrow concerns and within the living world? In this moment of global climate change, we are returning to this question with a new sense of urgency, asking ourselves what it will mean for us to relinquish control and learn to live with greater regard for the natural world. This lecture will consider what it will mean for us to cultivate an ecocentric, contemplative spiritual practice in the Anthropocene.

“Contemplative Practice in an Age of Distraction”

Wednesday, October 2.  2 pm.  Marquette Hall 105.

In this discussion facilitated by Professor Douglas E. Christie, we will consider how contemplative and mindfulness practice can help us recover our capacity for attention and awareness in a time of chronic distraction. Drawing on ancient Christian and Buddhist teachings about attention, we will consider what it might mean to resist the increasingly aggressive "attention economy" and cultivate a contemplative politics and spirituality.

Professor Christie is Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is the author of The Word in The Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993), The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Note for a Contemplative Ecology (Oxford, 2013), and The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Mysticism, Loss and the Common Life (Oxford, 2022). He has held fellowships from the Luce Foundation, the Lilly Foundation, and the NEH. From 2013-15 he served as co-director of the Casa de la Mateada study abroad program in Córdoba, Argentina, a program rooted in the Jesuit vision of education for solidarity.  He lives with his family in Los Angeles. He is currently working on a book on the desert as spiritual landscape.

Professor Christie's visit is co-sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of the Humanities, the Marquette Core Curriculum, the University Honors Program, and the Departments of English and Theology.

 

Featuring Becky Frankiewicz (ManpowerGroup President)

Alumni Memorial Union

Contact meghann.witthoft@marquette.edu for more details.

Related to: Basic Needs and Justice; Engaging Social Systems and Values

Presented by Caroline E. Janney, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War, University of Virginia

4:30 PM in the Beaumier Suites BC, Raynor Memorial Library

Sponsored by the History Department               

Related to: Individuals and Communities

6:30 PM in Marquette Hall 100

A semi-humorous way of discussing the intersection of music, music criticism and the notion of talking/writing/thinking about something we can neither see nor touch but which, at its best, shakes us to our core.

Co-Sponsored by Center for the Advancement of the Humanities

For more information, contact phillip.naylor@marquette.edu, History Department

Related to: Methods of Inquiry: Rock and Roll

Presented by Paul Taylor

The CRPR is one of the premier philosophy of race conferences, and we are privileged to host it. Prof. Paul Taylor, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of three books, Black Is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, On Obama, and Race: A Philosophical Introduction, is the keynote speaker.

Co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department

For more information, contact grant.silva@marquette.edu, Philosophy Department

Related to: Methods of Inquiry: Race and Resistance; Engaging Social Systems and Values

Presented by Dr. Susana Chávez-Silverman, Pomona College

2:00 PM in the Haggerty Museum

Susana Chávez-Silverman, bilingual escritora and professor at Pomona College, will perform her own unique brand of intercultural, introspective yet energetic poesía that pushes the boundaries between Spanish and English. As Ilan Stavans has said, “Susana ChávezSilverman is not a code-switcher but a switch-burner”. Dr. Chávez-Silverman has authored numerous books, including Killer Crónicas: Bilingual Memories, Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters, and, most recently, Heartthrob: del Balboa Café al Apartheid and Back. A reception will follow the poetry performance.

Co-sponsored by Latinx and Latin American Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Haggerty Museum

For more information, contact julia.paulk@marquette.edu, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Related to:  Individuals and Communities; Crossing Boundaries

Presented by Dr. Nicole Van Cleve

6:30 PM in the Weasler Auditorium

Nicole Van Cleve is a scholar of race, law, and criminal justice.  Her book, Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America's Largest Criminal Court, and her legal commentary has been featured on NBC News, MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show and CNN. Her recent op-ed in the New York Times entitled,"Chicago's Racist Cops and Racist Courts"shows the complicity of the criminal courts in the racist culture of policing and injustice in Chicago.  "The Waiting Room," (Amazon Original Stories in partnership with the Marshall Project) examines life around the Cook County Jail and how the suffering - caused by pretrial incarceration - extends beyond the cages and into the communities.

For more information, contact meghan.stroshine@marquette.edu, Department of Social and Cultural Sciences

Related to: Engaging Social Systems and Values; Basic Needs and Justice

4 PM in Alumni Memorial Union 163

Reading by widely-published multi-modal poet and former Milwaukee Poet Laureate Matt Cook

Sponsored by the Marquette University Core

Co-sponsored by LitMarquette Series, Center for the Advancement of the Humanities

For more information, contact angela.sorby@marquette.edu, English Department

Related to: Methods of Inquiry: Creativity

Presented by Esther Duflo

For more information, contact meghann.witthoft@marquette.edu

The MUSG Speaker Series proudly presents A Conversation with Javier Muñoz on Thursday, September 23 at 6pm in the Weasler Auditorium. Come hear Javier speak about his work as an actor and an activist.

Javier Muñoz is an actor and activist whose impressive body of work spans theater, film and television. Muñoz is best known for starring as "Alexander Hamilton” in the cultural-phenomenon musical Hamilton on Broadway for two years, after Lin-Manuel Miranda departed the show (and was his alternate prior to that).

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, MUSG aims to support programming elevating the celebration of Latinx culture on Marquette's campus supporting Discovery Tier themes: "Basic Needs and Justice," "Individuals and Communities," and "Expanding Our Horizons."

For one night only, A24 comes to Marquette to screen The Green Knight (2021)

Based on the timeless medieval classic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

With a roundtable panel featuring Gerry Canavan (English), William Fliss (Raynor Library), Lezlie Knox (History), Jacob Riyeff (English), and Elizaveta Strakhov (English).

Discussion will related to MCC “Individuals and Communities” and “Crossing Boundaries” Discovery Themes.

Thurs, Oct 7, 5-8pm @ Weasler Auditorium in the AMU

Co-sponsored by the Raynor Library and the Marquette Core Curriculum.