News

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture will continue its “Celebration of Books” recently published by Holy Cross faculty with a discussion on Stephanie E. Yuhl’s A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston on March 29 at 4 p.m. in the College’s Rehm Library. The event is free and open to the public.

In A Golden Haze of Memory (The University of North Carolina Press), Yuhl critically examines the city of Charleston, S.C., between 1920 and 1940. It was during this time that city leaders worked to promote Charleston’s cultural heritage and national value. Through a network of elite white artists, literary figures and cultural groups, the city marketed its architecture, art, literature and African American folk culture — and downplayed its Confederate associations. Yuhl believes that this “sanitized” version of southern history was a translation of the memories of privileged whites into a collective identity for the city that ultimately protected social hierarchies and preserved their power.

Susan Rodgers, professor of anthropology, will review the book, Yuhl, associate professor of history, will respond with her own remarks and an open floor discussion will follow.

The event is the continuation of a series of discussions of books by faculty that run across the concerns of the Center — religion, ethics and culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Professor Michele Intermont ’89 will deliver the 13th annual Leonard C. Sulski Memorial Lecture in Mathematics on March 22 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 519. The lecture, free and open to the public, is titled “The Sound of Algebra.”

Intermont, who earned high honors in mathematics from Holy Cross, received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 1994. She taught at John Carroll University and Mesa State College before going to Kalamazoo College, where she is now an associate professor of mathematics. Her research area is algebraic topology.

Intermont’s lecture will introduce bell ringing (English change ringing to be more precise) as an application of algebra. The lecture will present samples of bell ringing and then describe a problem faced by those who compose for bell ringing for which algebra has the solution. The presentation is aimed at a general mathematical audience including undergraduate students.

The lecture will be preceded by a dinner co-sponsored by the department of mathematics and computer science and the Mathematical Association of America. For more information about the dinner, please contact Professor Tom Cecil of the department of mathematics and computer science before March 13 at 508-793-2719 or by e-mail at cecil@mathcs.holycross.edu.

The annual mathematical lecture series is a tribute to Leonard C. Sulski who taught in the mathematics department at Holy Cross from 1965 until his untimely death from leukemia in 1991.

WORCESTER, Mass. – D.Z. Phillips, Rush Rhees Professor Emeritus at the University of Wales and Danforth Chair in Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, will give a talk titled “Seeing Pictures of God” on March 21 at 4 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

The lecture will explore questions that have implications for religious belief, such as: What if someone offered to show you a picture of God? How would you react? What would it be like to see such a picture? Did Michelangelo fail to paint such a picture when he depicted God creating Adam? What if such pictures cease to mean anything for human beings? What if they had never existed?

Phillips’ research interests include the philosophy of religion, ethics, philosophy and literature and Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is the director of the Rush Rhees and Peter Winch Archives and editor of the quarterly journal Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell Publishers), which contains papers in every area of philosophy, and the Swansea Series in Philosophy (Palgrave), in which authors are expected to engage with the thought of influential philosophers and contemporary movements.

His most recent books include The Problem Of Evil And The Problem Of God (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005), Religion and Friendly Fire (Ashgate Publishing, 2004) and Recovering Religious Concepts (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999).

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – William Lane Craig, research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, Calif., and Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Gray distinguished professor and chair of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will debate the question, “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” on March 28 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross. Craig and Ehrman will discuss the status of the Christian claim to Jesus’ resurrection from the perspective of historical data. The event, free and open to the public, will be followed with a question-and-answer session. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

Craig has participated in public debates on topics including Jesus’ resurrection and the existence of God, several of which have been published in hard copy. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the relationship of science and theology.

Ehrman has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited 13 books, including a study of the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, numerous articles, and dozens of book reviews.

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and the Campus Christian Fellowship.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, will give a talk on natural law and critique American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ refutation of natural law on March 23 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom. The talk is free and open to the public.

George is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1993-98. He also served as Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the 1990 Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

He is a recipient of many honors and awards, including a 2005 Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Liberal Arts of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award from Princeton’s department of politics. He holds honorary doctorates of law, ethics, letters, science and humane letters.

George is the author of In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 2001), Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1995) and The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2001). He has published numerous scholarly articles and book reviews.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Fenwick Review; Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Holy Cross chapter of COMPASS, students evangelizing students; and the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Rev. James Corkery, S.J., international visiting fellow from Dublin, will give a talk titled “A Half Century as Theologian: Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI” on March 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI has been writing theology all of his adult life — for more than 20 years as a professor, five as a diocesan bishop and close to 25 as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In some 70 books, and in hundreds of scholarly articles, he has put together a theological synthesis that is distinctive, consistent and controversial. Fr. Corkery will shed light on the new pope’s overall theological achievement; examine whether it exhibits continuity or change over 50 years of writing; and consider at least some of the controversial and critical points that have been raised in its regard by others in the theological community.

An Irish Jesuit since 1972, Fr. Corkery holds a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He teaches theology at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin, Ireland. His research interests include systematic theology and spirituality.

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – In connection with the $64.575 million Massachusetts Development Finance Agency Floating Rate Revenue Bonds, the College of the Holy Cross-2006 Issue issued today, the College’s ratings were affirmed at “Aa3,” “AA-,” and “AA-” by Moody’s Investor Services, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, and Fitch Ratings, respectively.

Bond proceeds will be used to refund the College’s 1996 bonds.  Banc of America Securities LLC served as underwriter for the issue and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. served as bond counsel.

The agencies also gave a “stable” rating outlook for the bond issue, based on a variety of factors including Holy Cross’ stable enrollment, substantial liquidity, consistent operating performance and experienced, professional management team.

At the end of fiscal 2005, Holy Cross’ endowment stood at $465 million and its outstanding debt was $126 million.

Rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agencies’ public sites, www.moodys.com, www.standardandpoors.com, and www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from these sites, at all times.

WORCESTER, Mass. – There are two remaining concerts as part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series for the 2005 – 2006 academic year. The concerts, which are free and open to the public, will be held in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel. The chapel is handicapped accessible.

Organist David Heller will perform on April 9 at 3 p.m. He will perform works by Christian Ritter, Heinrich Scheidemann, Dieterich Buxtehude, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Nicolas de Grigny and J.S. Bach.

Dr. Heller is considered one of the finest young organists in the United States. He serves as professor of organ at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas; and is the 2005 Catherine Crozier Visiting Artist in Residence at Cathedral of Portland, Ore.

Organist Jeffrey Wood ’06 will perform on April 23 at 3 p.m. He will perform works by de Grigny, Buxtehude and Bach. Wood will be assisted by the Holy Cross Schola Cantorum.

Wood is the 2005 Holy Cross Organ Scholar. He was the first prize winner of the 2004 Augustana Organ Competition in Denver, the 2004 first prize winner of the Boston Chapter’s AGO Regional Competition for Young Organists, and won first prize at the 2005 AGO Regional Convention at Hartford, Conn.

Wood will play one of the Rising Star Concerts at the 2006 AGO National Convention in Chicago. He made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at James Levine’s first concert in October 2004 in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony #8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”); he also traveled with Maestro Levine and the BSO to New York City, where they repeated the work at Carnegie Hall.

For more information, please call the Holy Cross music department at 508-793-2296.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Gerard F. Powers, coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network and director of policy studies at University of Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, will give a talk titled “Catholics and Peacebuilding” on March 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Powers will examine the state of Catholic teaching on war and peace as it relates to terrorism, globalization and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will give particular attention to peacebuilding initiatives in areas struggling with political, ethnic and religious conflicts.

The Catholic Peacebuilding Network is a voluntary network of practitioners, academics, clergy and laity from around the world which seeks to enhance the study and practice of Catholic peacebuilding, especially at the local level.

Policy studies links the theoretical aspects of peace studies to issues of international policy, connects scholars to policymakers as well as non-governmental organizations looking to expand their influence on policy. The Notre Dame institute helps prepare graduates to work on the policy dimensions of peacebuilding.

Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, Powers was director of international policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, advising the church’s leaders on issues related to nuclear weapons, land mines, foreign assistance and Iraq.

Powers has been an adjunct faculty member at the National Law Center of George Washington University (international law, ethics and conflict) and the Oblate School of Theology (Catholic social teaching). His recent articles have examined the ethics of the use of force in Iraq, nuclear weapons, humanitarian intervention, and economic sanctions. He has also written on religion and U.S. foreign policy, the right to self-determination, and the role of religion in the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is co-editor of Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World (Georgetown University Press, 1995).

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Organist Karel Paukert will perform a concert on March 19 at 3 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at the College of the Holy Cross. As part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series, Paukert will perform German and Czech organ music from many centuries. The concert is free and open to the public. St. Joseph Chapel is handicapped accessible.

Paukert has recently been named Curator of Musical Arts Emeritus of the Cleveland Museum of Art. A native of the Czech Republic, he has toured the world and is regarded as a specialist in Czech organ music. This will mark his first performance as part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series.

For more information, please call the Holy Cross music department at 508-793-2296.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross will present Catholic Collecting, Catholic Reflection 1538-1850: Objects As a Measure of Reflection on a Catholic Past and the Construction of Recusant Self-Identity in England and America from Feb. 22 to April 13. The show’s curator is Virginia Raguin, visual arts professor at the College.

The exhibition contains more than 60 objects, most from Jesuit institutions across the United States and in England, and includes centuries-old and extremely rare stained glass, liturgical vestments, paintings, books, sculpture and other works of art important to Catholic culture and worship. More than half of the pieces have never before been exhibited in the United States.

A series of public events in conjunction with the exhibit opening will be held at the Cantor Art Gallery on Feb. 22:

* 4:30 p.m. Gallery talk by Virginia Raguin, who will discuss the value of the pieces of art.
* 5 p.m. Holy Cross Chamber singers, under the direction of choir director Pamela Getnick, will perform music by Renaissance master Josquin des Prez, featuring a setting of the text “Ave Maria … Virgo Serena,” one of Josquin’s best loved works.
* 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Reception

Ten international academics and museum professionals will reflect on the broader issues of the problematic search for meaning in the display of one culture by another in a symposium titled “Religion Matters: Art, Piety, Destruction, and the Politics of Display” on Feb. 26. To see the schedule and abstracts of talks visit: http://college.holycross.edu/projects/catholiccollecting.

The exhibition focuses on the preservation of religious objects by Catholics during the “penal times” under British law. These objects, acquired with great risk, embodied the faithful’s bonds with God, church tradition, and each other. When suppressed, many Catholics during this period came to identify their faith with the prayer books, paintings, and objects of ritual such as Mass vestments and chalices that they were able to obtain or hide. These Catholics became known as recusants — recusing themselves from oaths of loyalty and participation in the state-sanctioned religion. The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) played a major role during this period, in terms of both missions in England and in the colony of Maryland, created as a sanctuary for Catholics in 1634.

Among the Jesuit institutions that have loaned objects for the Holy Cross exhibition are: Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England; Campion Hall at the University of Oxford, Oxford, England; Georgetown University; Loyola University, Chicago and Holy Cross. The exhibition groups stained glass, alabaster carving, manuscripts, printed books, liturgical vessels, paintings and vestments, including the prized chasuble given to Westminster Abbey by Henry VII.

A major focus will be on the Mass and altar furnishing. Several chalices were produced for Jesuits on clandestine missions in England; one traveled with the Jesuits to Maryland. A series of essays accompanying the exhibit profile aspects of piety, politics, and art, including the early missionary work of the Society of Jesus in England and the Maryland Colony.

A fully illustrated catalogue of 224 pages will be published jointly with the Catholic University of America Press.

One of the major goals of the exhibition is to encourage active interpretation and invite a variety of audiences to reflect on what these objects meant to people of the past. The Chaplains’ Office at Holy Cross will incorporate the exhibition as part of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, and 20 members of the faculty will utilize the show as an element in their courses. One course will train students to act as interpreters for a variety of age groups — from school children to senior citizens — who will visit the gallery. Participants in local parish Lenten programs and Confirmation classes will also be welcomed to tour the gallery, and experience what the objects reveal about Catholic beliefs and the stories of their preservation.

Catholic Collecting, Catholic Reflection 1538-1850 is also occurring during a significant celebratory year for the Jesuits. The year 2006 marks the 450th anniversary of the death (1556) of its founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola and the 500th anniversary of the birth (1506) of two of his fellow students and companions, St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Faber. Jesuit Jubilee 2006 is being celebrated internationally, with events planned at the Jesuit colleges and universities as well as Jesuit provinces the world over. For listings of the many educational events marking this year, visit www.jesuit.org.

Gallery Information

The hours for the Cantor Art Gallery are Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5p.m., Saturdays 2 – 5 p.m. The gallery is closed March 4 and 11. Located in O’Kane Hall, 1st Floor, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610. Admission to the gallery is free. Public parking is located on Linden Lane, gate 2, off College Street.

For more information, call the Cantor Art Gallery at 508-793-3356 or visit the Gallery’s Web site at: www.holycross.edu/departments/cantor/website/index.html.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross music department will present the annual Susanna E. Waldbauer Memorial Concert performed by the Holy Cross Chamber Players on March 16 at 8 p.m. in Brooks Concert Hall. The concert, free and open to the public, will feature works by J.S. Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Robert Schumann.

Carol Lieberman, associate professor of music, will perform on Baroque and modern violin and Mark Kroll will perform on harpsichord, fortepiano and modern piano.

Professor Lieberman has been one of the leading exponents of Baroque violin performance for the past two decades, and is equally well known for her performances of 19th through 21st century literature. She has toured throughout North and South America and Europe, and the scope of her versatility can be seen by her performances of the complete Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord in such cities as Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Boston and San Francisco, and her many premieres of 20th century works. She is co-director of the Holy Cross Chamber Players, and violinist of the Early Music Ensemble of Boston and The Lieberman/Kroll Duo.

In addition to his concert performances, Mark Kroll is a noted authority on performance practice and period instruments. He is a proponent of the harpsichord music of the 20th and 21st centuries and has premiered, commissioned and recorded many new works. As a conductor, he has directed both orchestral and vocal ensembles, and served as the Artistic Director of Opera New England. In 1991 he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Padua, Italy and in 1993 he served as Professor at the Conservatory of Music in Würzburg, Germany. He has conducted master classes in the music academies of Warsaw, Krakow and Ljubljana and the Athens Conservatory in Greece. Kroll is Professor Emeritus at Boston University, where for 25 years he was professor and chair of the department of historical performance.

Susanna Waldbauer came to Holy Cross to teach music in 1970 and inspired scores of students over the next 20 years. A native of Devavanya, Hungary, Waldbauer studied at the National Conservatory of Music and graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, both in Budapest. After graduation, she studied with Hungarian composers Zoltan Kodaly and Leo Weiner. In 1947, she left Hungary and moved to Mexico where she supported herself by playing and teaching piano. After arriving in the United States, she earned a master’s degree in music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. An accomplished performer of music for two pianos as well as the mixed chamber music repertoire, Waldbauer gave concerts all over New England, including appearances as a soloist with the Vermont Symphony. An influential teacher and music department chair at Holy Cross, she offered courses in music history, introductory structure of music and keyboard music.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Robert Orsi, Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard Divinity School, will give a talk titled “Catholic Childhood” on March 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, free and open to the public, is part of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity series.

Orsi will present his most recent research which is a social and cultural history of growing up Catholic in the United States in the 20th century. The research raises questions about children’s distinctive religious experiences and about what it means to become persons within specific worlds of religious practice and imagination.

Orsi’s past work has focused on religion in the history and contemporary life of American cities, religion and immigration, Catholic devotionalism, particularly human relations with saints, gender and religion.

He is the author of The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 (Yale University Press, 1988); Thank You, St. Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes (Yale University Press, 1998) and Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious World People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton University Press, 2004).

Sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, Deitchman Family Lectures explore “the place of religious and spiritual life in a world that is sometimes at odds with faith, other times in search of it, and always at work reshaping it.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Distinguished poet Camille Dungy will give a reading of her forthcoming book of poems titled What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave For Poison on Feb. 24 at 1:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

The book, scheduled for release by Red Hen Press on March 1, is a collection of rogue sonnets describing characters that regularly question or defy restrictions and expectations. Dungy, who heard from her grandparents many stories of the struggles that blacks endured before the civil rights movement, uses the experiences of individual African-Americans to explore 20th-century American life, specifically the role of race in the development and sustenance of personal relationships and aspirations.

Dungy is associate professor of English and the coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Cave Canem, and the American Antiquarian Society. She has been a John Atherton Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Once the Writer-in-Residence at Rocky Mountain National Park, Dungy has also been awarded fellowships and residencies by the Norton Island/Eastern Frontier Society, The Corporation of Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation.

The event is sponsored by Africana Studies.