News and Events

Please join the departments of American Studies, Classics and Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, English, Film and Media Culture, History, Literary Studies, and Religion for a reception celebrating graduates in these disciplines.

The following departments invite grads and their guests to join them in the locations listed below.

English | AXN 232 | 3:30-4:15 pm

Religion | AXN 220 | 3:30-4:15 pm

History | Abernethy Room (AXN 221) | 3:30-5:00 pm

Film and Media Culture | AXN 229 | 3:30-5:30 pm

American Studies | American Studies Conference Room | 4:45-5:30 pm

Classics and Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Literary Studies | AXN 232 | 4:45-5:30 pm

St. Francis of Assisi is celebrated as the patron saint of animals and is also recognized as a symbol of pacifism and brotherhood. How then could the figure of St. Francis end up serving the Fascist political project, most tellingly by being declared the Patron Saint of (Fascist) Italy in 1939? Why, and how, would this scrawny Saint become the emblem of a nation dedicated to war? As nowadays the Meloni’s government has also been referring to the Saint, this talk by Professor Amanda Minervini of Colorado College will illustrate some of the political appropriations through archival research and representation analyses.

On the second day of the symposium, Mexican director Michelle Garza Cervera will answer questions (in English) about her acclaimed debut film Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022). This will be followed by a conversation in Spanish between Michelle and Rita Segato, offering a broader dialogue on gender-based abuse and violence against women in Latin America. The conversation between Michelle and Rita will be translated into English for the audience.

Cookies and drinks will be provided.

The Juana Gamero de Coca Memorial Symposium is funded by the David Fleming Family Foundation.

Additional co-sponsors include the Academic Speaker Supplement Fund, the Axinn Center for Humanities, the Hirschfield Film Endowment, and the TC Hsu Fund.

Presented in Spanish with real-time translation to English

The symposium will kickoff with a keynote presentation by Argentine anthropologist Rita Segato, followed by an open discussion with students, faculty, and community members. Hors d’oeuvres will be provided in Sunderland Lobby beginning at 4:00 PM.

Segato is a prolific Argentine-Brazilian anthropologist and feminist scholar known for her groundbreaking research on gender, violence, and patriarchy in Latin America. She is an emeritus professor of anthropology and of the graduate programs in bioethics and human rights at the University of Brasília. Her work has been instrumental in illuminating the structural roots of gender-based violence and the intersections of colonialism, race, and gender.

The Juana Gamero de Coca Memorial Symposium is funded by the David Fleming Family Foundation. 

Additional co-sponsors include the Academic Speaker Supplement Fund, the Axinn Center for Humanities, the Hirschfield Film Endowment, and the TC Hsu Fund.

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Security and Global Affairs presents “Resilient Democratization: Social and Political Change in Iran and Beyond” with Norma Claire Moruzzi.

Based on the author’s book, “Tied Up in Tehran: Women, Social Change, and the Politics of Daily Life in Postrevolutionary Iran” (Cambridge University Press, 2025), this talk examines the social conditions that gave rise to the widespread street protests in Iran and the ensuing violent state repression during the winter of 2025–26. It further explores the broader implications of these developments for democratization and regional security in the Middle East.

Norma Claire Moruzzi is Professor of Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies, with Affiliations in History and Art History, Director of the International Studies Program, and Co-Chair of the Middle East and Muslim Societies Cluster at UIC. She is an Associate Editor for the journal Iranian Studies, and a past chair and member of the editorial committee of the journal Middle East Report. Her research and teaching address the politics of social identity, with particular emphasis on the intersection of gender, religion, and nationalisms.

In-person event. For more information on the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, click here.

Iran has entered one of the most consequential crises in its recent history when the United States and Israel launched coordinated and unprovoked air strikes across the country on February 28. These strikes killed hundreds, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran since 1989. The country has retaliated with missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases, Israel, and other targets in the Gulf countries, raising the risk of a full-scale regional war.  How did we get here? What is the role of ideology on both sides in how the conflict has gotten to this point, and how might it define where we go from here? What immediate political and institutional challenges does Iran face in the wake of Khamenei’s assassination? What domestic and international factors are shaping U.S. decision-making, and what effects might they bring to bear on the region and the international system? The panel will address these questions.

Panelists: Ata Anzali, Febe Armanios, Caileigh Glenn, Sebnem Gumuscu

Are you confused about how to know what’s true? Or about how best to live? Or how to even approach these questions?

In open-ended roundtable discussions, our multi-disciplinary panel of experts will address such questions as: What is love? How do we know what is the best way to live, to promote human flourishing? Are there empirical answers to these? Are quantitative approaches enough? What other modes of understanding do we need? And how can we integrate or balance the differing assumptions, methods and conclusions of our various fields and disciplines—making the multi-disciplinarity of the liberal arts akin to being multi-cultural or multi-lingual?

Mariam Ghani is an artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her work examines places, spaces, and moments where social, political, and cultural structures manifest in visible forms, encompassing video, sound, installation, photography, performance, text, and data. 

Mariam will give a lecture and host a Q & A after the screening of her film (15:30), There’s a Hole in the World Where You Used to Be, which is a film about memory and mourning, war at a distance, and grief that overflows or fits poorly into the usual containers. It departs from the premise that both grief and black holes are so dense and intense that they bend space and time around their specific gravity – warping perspectives, reshaping the physical world, and throwing those caught in their orbit out of temporal sync.

This lecture by Jason Springs (Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame) introduces a novel understanding of what restorative justice is and how it should be implemented. It explores the ways in which restorative justice ethics and practices exhibit moral and spiritual dynamics, and what difference such “lived religious” dynamics can make in transforming structural violence.

R. Ward Holder (Associate Professor of Theology at St. Anselm College) will deliver the final talk in the 2025 Scott Lecture Series. Christian nationalists insist that the US was founded by and for Christians. As a resurgent populist movement in contemporary American politics, Christian nationalism aims to establish the legal, moral, and cultural dominance of an ultra-conservative, exclusivist interpretation of the religion, and it views diversity and pluralism as existential threats to that objective. This year’s Scott Lecture Series, sponsored by the Religion Department, will invite a range of scholars to help us understand this movement, its roots, its adherents, and the consequences it poses to American public life.

Daniel Miller (Professor of Humanities at Landmark College) will deliver the third talk in the 2025 Scott Lecture Series. Christian nationalists insist that the US was founded by and for Christians. As a resurgent populist movement in contemporary American politics, Christian nationalism aims to establish the legal, moral, and cultural dominance of an ultra-conservative, exclusivist interpretation of the religion, and it views diversity and pluralism as existential threats to that objective. This year’s Scott Lecture Series, sponsored by the Religion Department, will invite a range of scholars to help us understand this movement, its roots, its adherents, and the consequences it poses to American public life.