We invite the Villanova Community to join us for a taste of mindfulness meditation on Mondays from 1-1:30 p.m. during the spring semester. Mindfulness Mondays will offer a virtual, comfortable space where you are guided and encouraged to stop and focus on the “here and now.” Mindfulness is proven to reduce stress and enhance well-being, which can be beneficial to all faculty, staff, and students. Sessions will take place each week via Zoom.
Mindfulness Mondays are presented by Campus Ministry and co-sponsored by Falvey Library. Registration is not required. All are welcome at these ACS-approved events!
JOIN HERE: https://villanova.zoom.us/j/99049034689
Please join us on Wednesday, March 29, from 12-1:30 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for a workshop titled, “A Womanist Path to Ending White Christian America” featuring Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart. In person attendance is encouraged, but you can view via livestream here.
The recent murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and Patrick Lyoya, and others are only the latest episodes in a brutal history of racial violence in this country -- racial violence that is the consequence of a white supremacist system. A troubling part of that reality is that white supremacy is grounded in Christian history, texts, ideas, and institutions. Is Christian faith possible apart from anti-Blackness? In this session, we will explore this question as we contemplate the meaning of the end of “White Christian America.” We will study the liberative possibilities found in womanist theology, a discourse developed by Black women.
This session will be facilitated by Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart. Reverend Naomi is an ordained minister, justice advocate, public administrator, and adjunct professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library, Center for Peace and Justice Education, and Theology and Religious Studies, is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Please join us on Thursday, March 30, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for a reading and talk by Donika Kelly, one of the Literary Festival’s featured speakers.
Kelly is the author of The Renunciations (Graywolf), winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary (Graywolf), the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poetry has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Publishing Triangle Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and longlisted for the National Book Award. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and more. She earned an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. Kelly is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public.
For more information on Kelly, please visit her website: https://www.donikakelly.com/
Livestream: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/e554bc574244468294494430fb4e521b1d
Join the Villanova Gaming Society most Fridays during the semester from 2:30–4:30 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for some fun! The VGS is a social club focused on recreation and relaxation. Participants gather once a week to play video games in a safe and fun environment. The VGS also has the pleasure of participating in video game activities, such as tournaments and expositions, and is always accepting new members!
This event series, co-sponsored by Falvey Library and the Villanova Gaming Society, is free and open to the public.
Please join us on Thursday, April 13 at 4 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for a Scholarship@Villanova talk featuring Alessandra Seggi, PhD, Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology. Dr. Seggi will present a talk titled “Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: All the Silence We Don’t Talk About.“
A large project, which culminated in the publication of Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), examined the portrayal of youth and suicide in American films (N=187) from 1900 to 2019, with particular attention to the context, causes and consequences of suicide. It also teased out insidious yet fascinating social dynamics around suicidality involving both the suicidal individual and their friends and family. The analysis concluded that the portrayal of youth and suicide in film is controversial, or at least unbalanced, inconsistent, limited, and at times simplistic. Other times it can be stifling in its brutal honesty, yet rich and thought-provoking. Hence, rather than obliterate or block certain content from reaching audiences, or suggest certain reactions to audiences, young audiences need to think for themselves and question the media.
A proactive approach for audiences to interpret film messages can help youth—a media literacy strategy to embrace as active social players, while watching these films. This is a tool for empowering audiences, and helping them watch and analyze films as engaged citizens, and ultimately “for strengthening young people’s participation in civic and political life” (Hobbs, 2011, p. 421–422). Indeed, only when audiences are able to tease apart the varied, nuanced, transient, complex media messages, are they able to negotiate meaning for themselves, act as engaged social players, and perhaps begin to comprehend suicidality, and “heal the hearts or settle the minds of those left behind in its dreadful wake” (Jamison, 1999, p. 18).
Importantly, silence, by intruding into several interactions, dramatically alters them. Yet, it rarely gets talked about. So, for example, the physical and emotional consequences of suicidality on the suicidal individual are almost never tackled in film. The consequences of suicidality on the bereaved are even more infrequent object of conversation. There are yet other ways for silence to complicate relationships and affect someone’s suicidality. Silence hides complicity, when not voicing our concerns when we have some, or not speaking up in front of injustice, or not seeking help when in a crisis. It also demonstrates how we become complicit in perpetuating injustice, how we might aggravate our condition, or how we might perpetuate a life in suicidal mode, as well as perpetuating the path of least resistance. Only a few films, notably Captain Fantastic, Permanent Record, and Surviving Family, offer a vivid depiction of the desolation that friends and family experience after a suicide. Beyond the Lights shows how being embedded in a web of social relationships can offer the suicidal individual mixed messages—on the one hand, suicidality is not to be talked about; on the other, asking for and receiving help are essential steps in one’s recovery. A few other exceptional films from different eras and with varying styles, such as A Girl Like Her, Something Wild and Full Metal Jacket, showcase how silence exacerbates the consequences of trauma.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library, the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the Department of Communication, is free and open to the public.
Hobbs, R. (2011). The state of media literacy: A response to Potter. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55(3), 419–430.
Jamison, K. R. (1999). Night falls fast: Understanding suicide. Vintage Books.
Please join us on Monday, April 17 from 5-6 p.m. in Falvey Library's Speakers' Corner for the Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture for Africana Studies.
The Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture focuses on African issues and issues connected to the global Black diaspora. The featured speaker will be Kris Manjapra, PhD, Professor, Department of History, Tufts University. Dr. Manjapra works at the intersection of transnational history and the critical study of race and colonialism. He is the author of five books, including his comparative study of global emancipation processes and the implications for reparations movement today: Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Program, Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies, and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 18, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for a reading and talk by Steph Cha, one of the Literary Festival’s featured speakers.
Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. Her other works include Follow Her Home, Beware Beware, Dead Soon Enough, and Treasures in Heaven. A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, Cha is an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public.
For more information on Cha, please visit her website: http://stephcha.com/
Livestream: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/3effc204f1c24a338741d707714cc6171d
Please join us on Wednesday, April 19 at 4 p.m. in Connelly Cinema for a special event titled, “Bridging Cultures: A Celebration of Arab and Palestinian Music.”
The event will feature Issa Boulos, an international award-winning composer, lyricist and songwriter. Issa Boulos studied piano, ‘ud and voice at an early age and later pursued music composition with Gustavo Leone, Athanasios Zervas, and William Russo at Columbia College Chicago and with Robert Lombardo and Ilya Levinson at Roosevelt University.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the Center for Arabic and Islamic Studies, the Department of Spanish, and Falvey Memorial Library, is free and open to the public.
Join us for a lively conversation with the 2023 Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies, award-winning writer, translator, and editor, Mary O'Donoghue, and award-winning Irish writer and editor, Lisa McInerney, about the craft of writing, translation, editing, and process and where the arts of each intersect and work together, police one another, or pull apart. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 19 at 4 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speaker's Corner.
Mary O'Donoghue is the author of the novel Before the House Burns (The Lilliput Press, 2010) and the poetry collections Among These Winters (Dedalus Press, 2007) and Tulle (Salmon Poetry, 2001). O’Donoghue’s forthcoming short story collection will be published by Stinging Fly Press in 2023. O'Donoghue's writing awards include two artist's fellowships from Massachusetts Cultural Council (2006 and 2012), Irish Times’ “Legends of the Fall” prize for short fiction in response to Ireland's economic crisis (2013), and residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her fiction has appeared in many notable US and European publications including Subtropics, The Common, Granta, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Irish Times, Sunday Times UK, Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, and elsewhere. Mary has also been published for her translations in Leabhar na hAthghabhala / Poems of Repossession (Bloodaxe Books/ Clo Iar-Chonnachta, 2016) and Sean O Riordain Selected Poems (Yale University Press, 2014).
Lisa McInerney is the author of three novels: The Glorious Heresies, The Blood Miracles, and The Rules of Revelation. She has won the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Desmond Elliot Prize, the RSL Encore Award and the Premio Edoardo Kihlgren for European literature and has been nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Premio Strega Europeo, the Sunday Times Short Story Award, and twice for the Dylan Thomas Award. Her work has featured in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, Granta, The Guardian, Le Monde, Vogue CS, The Irish Times, BBC Radio 4, and numerous anthologies. She is published in 11 languages. In 2022, she was appointed editor of The Stinging Fly literary magazine. She will be visiting us from Ireland. We hope you can make this special event!
This ACS-approved event is presented by the Center for Irish Studies and is co-sponsored by the Villanova Writing and Rhetoric Program and Falvey Library. Light refreshments will be served
Please join us on Wednesday, April 19, at 7 p.m. at Villanova University's Falvey Library for the 2022-2023 Alfred F. Mannella and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Endowed Distinguished Speaker Series Lecture presented by Peter Spina. Spina’s talk is titled, “The Italian Heritage of American Popular Music.” The talk will be held in the Library's Speakers' Corner on the first floor.
The rich musical heritage that Italian immigrants brought with them at the turn of the last century has had a major impact on shaping United States culture. From the birth of the nation’s commercial music industry in the early 1900’s through its evolution into American post-World War II pop, Italians had an outsized role and impact. Join us as Mr. Spina delves into how this occurred and discusses some of the key artists that led the way, particularly those from the Philadelphia Italian-American community.
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library and the Italian Studies Program, is free and open to the public.
About the Alfred F. Mannella and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Distinguished Speakers Series:
The generosity of Villanova University alumnus Alfred S. Mannella has made it possible for Falvey Library to sponsor a series of annual events, focusing on scholarship about Italian American history, culture, and the immigrant experience. The endowed lecture series is named for his parents, Alfred F. and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella. The talks in the Speakers series are held in the Library at the heart of Villanova University's campus. They are open to the wider community and, as always, are free to everyone, including the public.
Please join us on Thursday, April 20, from 4-5:30 p.m. in Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Library, for a special event in honor National Poetry Month.
The event will kick off with an official launch and introduction of the Library exhibit titled “Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections.” In this exhibit 7 curators (Beaudry Allen, Michael Foight, Demian Katz, Rebecca Oviedo, Megan Piorko, Christoforos Sassaris, Mike Sgier) have identified poems from Falvey Library’s Distinctive Collections that moved them to share with others. Each curator has had “poetic license” to select and curate an individual exhibit case or shelf of poetry – and then – author a text to tell a tale about their choices.
Following the exhibit launch, there will be an opportunity for faculty, staff, students and friends to participate in an open mic reading. All are invited to bring a favorite piece of poetry or creative writing to share!
This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library, Creative Writing Program, and the Department of English, is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Please join us on Monday, Apr. 24 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in Room 205 of Falvey Library for the St. Catherine of Siena Research Award Symposium.
The St. Catherine of Siena Undergraduate Peace and Justice Research Award is awarded annually to an undergraduate student for a research project relevant to peace and justice issues. Submitted papers are evaluated by CPJE affiliated faculty. The top three students, including the winner, present their work on a panel with a faculty respondent to a University-wide audience.
This event, co-sponsored by the Center for Peace and Justice Education and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public.
Please join us on Friday, April 28, from 3-4:30 p.m. in the Larson Kelly Auditorium (Room 132) and Atrium in Driscoll Hall or connect virtually as we celebrate the official launch of the 2023 issue of CONCEPT, the interdisciplinary journal of graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The ceremony will recognize this year’s Graduate Research Prize for top paper, along with all of the student authors and editors, faculty editors, and peer reviewers.
CONCEPT accepts submissions from Villanova graduate students in all fields of the arts and sciences and is an opportunity for them to share their scholarship and research.
The 2023 edition of CONCEPT marks the 46th release of the journal. This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library, the Office of Graduate Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Graduate Research and Education, is free and open to the public.
Visit the CONCEPT website to learn more about the journal and to browse past volumes.