The Cardinal’s talk focused on Catholic social teaching in the age of economic globalization, and was delivered to a packed room in the Westbrook Building. He discussed the Church’s focus on strengthening communities and the ways in which global capitalism is creating increasingly stratified societies.

To watch the entire talk, visit the Religion and Public Life resources page, where all of the videos for the speaker series will be posted throughout the spring.

The next talk will be on Tuesday night. All remaining talks will be on Tuesdays, beginning at 5:30 pm in room 0014 of the Westbrook Building, next to Duke Chapel.

Jose Casanova | February 19
“Post-secularization, Globalization, and Poverty”

Ruth Marshall | February 26
“Pentecostalism, Poverty & Power”

Katherine Marshall | March 5
“Religion and Development”

Peter van der Veer | March 26
“The Spiritual, the Secular and the Poor in India and China”

Susan Holman | April 9
“Public Health, Poverty & Patristics”

For more information and to download the application, visit our Campus Grants site.

The first film, Gran Torino (2008), will be screening Monday, January 14. It features actor-director Clint Eastwood as disgruntled Korean War vet Walt Kowalski. The story follows his growing friendship with his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski’s prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino. The post-film discussion will be led by Professor Marianna Torgovnick (English Department and Arts of the Moving Image). Torgovnick’s research and teaching expertise relates to film and media studies, cultural criticism, religion, and contemporary American issues.

On Monday February 11th, Le fils (The Son) (2002) will be shown. In this award-winning Belgian-French mystery film, themes of compassion and justice unfold in unexpected ways. The story follows Olivier, a carpentry instructor at a vocational school, who is still recovering from the murder of his only son five years earlier and the subsequent dissolution of his marriage. When a new student applies to join his class, Olivier initially refuses but then secretly begins following the boy.

The last two films in the series are selections from the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival. Brother Number One (2011) will be screened Monday, March 18. The director of the film, New Zealander Rob Hamill, tells the story of his brother’s death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. It explores the violence of the regime and its followers, killing nearly 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Thirty years later, Rob Hamill has a rare chance to take the stand as a witness at the Cambodia War Crimes Tribunal. In this documentary,  Rob retraces his brother’s final days, meeting survivors who tell the story of what countless families across Cambodia experienced at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The award-winning and international festival favorite Habibi (2011), by director Susan Yousef, will show April 8. The film follows young lovers Qays and Layla, university students in the West Bank who are forced to return home to Khan Yunis, Gaza. In conservative Khan Yunis, their relationship can only be sustained through marriage, but Qays is too poor to con­vince Layla’s father that he can provide for his daughter. As the couple struggles to be together, Qays paints verses from the classical Sufi poem Majnun Layla all over Khan Yunis, a rebellious act that angers Layla’s father and the local self-appointed moral police. Lyrical and passionate, Habibi depicts a reality where personal happiness must be weighed against society’s opinions, and a choice sometimes made between one’s people and one’s heart.

All films begin at 7:00pm
Griffith Theater, Bryan Center
Free admission, parking passes, and movie snacks

The series is sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and presented by Screen/Society at Arts of the Moving Image and the Center for Documentary Studies.

The biennial award is administered by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was initiated in 2005 by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams to encourage contemporary theological writing for a wider Christian readership. The prize is awarded in honor of Dr. Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961-1974.

A Paradoxical Politics? Religions, Poverty, & Re-Imagining Citizenship in a Globalizing World {REL 999.08, XTIANTHE 840}

Spring 2013; Tuesdays 5:30-8:00pm

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar examines the paradoxes in the public sphere when faith, citizenship and poverty intersect with the myriad processes of globalization.  What is the shape, purpose and configuration of the public sphere in regional, national and international contexts that issue forth from the points where these intersect?

Faith-based grassroots movements address poverty and inequality and in the process are involved in the renewal of citizenship by democratic means.  Examples include the role of Islamic parties in the Arab Spring, Pentecostalism in creating islands of social care in the favelas of Brazil, to millions raised for humanitarian aid and development by Evangelical groups, and the resort to religious discourses of jubilee and usury in addressing the deleterious impact of financialised debt.  Paradoxically, religious groups are also charged with exacerbating conditions that produce poverty and inequality. Here we think especially of women, authoritarian institutions, indigenous peoples and the fallout of contesting visions of public life whether secular, religious or plural.

Understanding the paradoxes produced by the intersection of faith, politics and economics is a crucial yet neglected dimension to negotiating the impact of globalisation locally, regionally and internationally on a wide range of issues such as public health, the environment, welfare provision, schooling, development aid, immigration, urban regeneration and security.