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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

  • 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.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    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?
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    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.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    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.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    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."
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Boston College

  • Courage to Be Catholic: What Future?

    Tue, Dec 3, 2002
    George Weigel argues that the current crisis in the Church is the direct result of a post-Vatican II relaxation of traditional Catholic mores. This, in his view, has led to a "purple priesthood" dominated by active homosexuals and widespread renunciation by the laity of Catholicism's founding principles.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Boston College

  • Boxers and Bluesmen: Revivalists from the Rust Belt

    Tue, Nov 12, 2002
    Boston College English professor Carlo Rotella discusses his book *Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt*, an exploration of cultural change in the working-class heart of the northeast and midwest. Visiting women boxers in Erie, bluesmen in Chicago, cops and crime writers in New York, and urban revivalists in Brockton, Rotella uncovers "what has been lost and gained in the long, slow aging-out of the industrial city."
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Boston College

  • Religious Imagery in Navajo Textiles

    Thu, Nov 7, 2002
    Rebecca Vallette, professor of Romance languages at Boston College and an avid scholar of Navajo weavings, explains that the seemingly abstract designs in Navajo textiles are, in fact, religious symbols imbued with specific meanings. These textiles are known, to many, for their bold and repeated geometric patterns.
    Forum Network
    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.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Boston College

  • German Expressionist Poetry, Identity and Clothing

    Fri, Nov 1, 2002
    As part of *Reclaiming a Lost Generation*, Boston College German Studies professor Rachel Freudenburg delivers this reading of German Expressionist poetry and offers insights into its symbolic imagery.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Boston College
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