Institute Sponsored Projects & Publications

The Jesuit Institute sponsors research, academic exchange and collective inquiry into issues that emerge at the intersection of faith and culture. The Institute works principally with schools, departments and programs of Boston College. To present such a project for Institute sponsorship, please submit a proposal to the Director.

Currently Sponsored Projects:

• Documentary: "Writing on the Wall," co-produced by John J. Michalczyk  & Ronald A. Marsh

This documentary, produced for the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in conjunction with the German Embassy’s national commemoration, not only highlights the principle phases on the reconstruction of democracy and international stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also captures the personal narratives of both leaders and citizens caught up in this drama.

• Study: "Salvadorian High-risk Youth and Service," by René Olate  (Graduate School of Social Work)

• Music at St. Mary's: 15th Century Chansons for voices and instruments, by Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem, Busnoys, Frye and others.
  

Blue Heron, Scott Metcalfe, Director

• Conference: XXX Annual Colloquy of the American Weil Society. Title:  "Simone Weil: Texts and Contexts." Organized by Tomeu Estelrich.

• Dance Performance: East Meets West. Two Jesuit Choreographers, by Robert VerEecke, SJ and Saju George, SJ

• Conference: "Catholic Renewal and Reform: Four Decades Sharing in the Jesuit Mission in Higher Education" by David O'Brien.

• Conference: "Jesuits and People of the Book: The Society of Jesus, Jews and Muslims, 1540-1773." Organized by Paul Shore and Emanuele Colombo.
  

• CD recording: Solo and Chamber Works, by Ralf Yusuf Gawlick.
  
  Composer and BC assistant professor, Ralf Yusuf Gawlick, will release a solo CD of four works on the Musica Omnia label this November, 2009. Works include Mysterium doloris quintae  (Tropen-Kreuz) for solo piano, Sonata-Mazur (Aus der Ferne...) for violin and piano, Trio for violin, cello and piano, and Glocken-Spiel for piano quartet. Gawlick has received numerous national and international awards and was most recently selected as a 2009 Artist Fellow in Music Composition by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC).

Past Sponsored Projects & Publications:

In past years, a variety of works, books, films, musical compositions, and exhibitions have been produced or supported by the Jesuit Institute. Finding God in all Things, comprises the papers given at the inaugural conference of the Jesuit Institute by a variety of distinguished scholars. Religion and the Arts began as an interdisciplinary faculty seminar and is now an independent quarterly that "seeks to explore religious and spiritual dimensions in the verbal, visual and performing arts, in the context of contemporary theory and culture." Others have included: 

Books:

• The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540-1773, by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Bailey, Steven Harris & T. Frank Kennedy, Eds. University Of Toronto Press, 2006.
• The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540-1773, by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris & T. Frank Kennedy, Eds. University of Toronto Press, 1999.
• Inculturation and the Church in North America, by T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., Ed., Crossroads, 2006.
• Religion, Human Rights, and the Gulag, by John J. Michalczyk & Naomi Blumberg Eds. Etolie International Productions, 2006.
• The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773, by John W. O’Malley and Gauvin Alexander Bailey Eds. (Original Italian edited by Giovanni Sale). Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005.
• The Dialogue Between Science and Religion: What We Have Learned from One Another, by Patrick H. Byrne, The University of Scranton Press, 2005.
• Catholic Ethicist on HIV/ AIDS Prevention, by James F. Keenan, S.J. Ed.  Continuum, 2000.
• Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773, by Gauvin Alexander Bailey, University Of Toronto Press, 1999.
• Seeing into the Life of Things. Essays on Literature and Religious Experience, by John L. Mahoney Ed. Fordham University Press, 1998
• In Ten Thousand Places: Dogma in a Pluralistic Church, by Paul G. Crowley, Crossroad, 1997.
• Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich, by John J. Michalczyk Ed. Sheed & Ward, 1994.
• Liberating the Caged Dalit Panther, by M. Sebastian, Emerald, 1994.
• Capitalism and the Moral Life, by John Langan S.J.
• Redeeming the Promise: Inquiries into Catholic Higher Education in a Jesuit Idiom, by Michael J. Buckley, S.J.
• Finding God in all Things, a collection of essays in various disciplines from numerous scholars that pay tribute to the inaugural Canisius chair holder of the Jesuit Institute, by Michael J. Buckley, S.J.

Musical Performances:

• 2008, October 24-25. Judicium Salomonis, by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It was performed at St Mary’s Chapel, Boston College.
  

• 2007, October 2-11. San Ignacio de Loyola, by Domenico Zipoli. Three performances at  Santa Clara, University of San Francisco and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Producer: T. Frank Kennedy, S.J.
Production Director: Michael A. Zampelli, S.J.
Conductor: John Finney (BC Music Department)

• 2006, March 24 -25, San Ignacio de Loyola, by Domenico Zipoli. It was performed in Rome in the 500th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of Jesus.
  

• 2004, October 30-31. Mors Saulis et Jonathae, H403, by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It was performed at St Mary’s Chapel, Boston College.

• 2002, November 23-24. Patientis Christi Memoria, by Johan Bernhard Staudt. It was performed at St Mary’s Chapel, Boston College.

Musical Recordings:

Monumenta Musicae Societatis Iesu (Series)

1. Gradualia (1607), by William Byrd

Director: Michael Noone
Organ: Robert Quinney
Ensemble Plus Ultra
Musica Omnia

2. The Jesuit Operas. Operas by Johannes Kapsberger (Apotheosis sive consecratio SS. Ignatii et Francisci Xaverii) and Domenico Zipoli/Martin Schmid/ et al., (San Ignacio).

Director: James David Christie
Ensemble Abendmusik
Dorian Recording.

3. God Here Among Us, a collection of 15 original musical compositions, by Chris Willcock, S.J.

Commissions and Sponsored Works:

• “The Guestbook Project”

Founded in 2008 by Richard Kearney and others, the aim of The Guestbook Project  is to welcome the stranger as guest through an innovative and technological investigation of hospitality through text, performance, and digital arts.

• "Mass for the Holy Year 2000" by Thomas Oboe Lee (BC Music Department). First Performance by John Finney and the University Chorale in Trinity Chapel, April 15, 2000.

The Mass is divided into nine movements and scored by SATB chorus, chamber orchestra and organ. It follows the entire Latin text from the Ordinary of the Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. In between these sections, there are four settings of contemporary poems written in English by Elizabeth Kirschner, Claude McKay, Edith Stein, and Thomas Merton. All these poems reflect and amplify what is already in the Latin text: a veneration for faith and redemption.

•  Films:

“Unexpected openings: Northern Ireland’s Prisoners,” (2000) by John J. Michalczyk, Raymond Helmick, S.J., and Paul Goudreau. Etoile Productions.

“Out of the Ashes: Northern Ireland’s Fragile Peace,” (1998) by John J. Michalczyk. Etoile Productions.

“In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine,”  (1997) by John J. Michalczyk. First Run Features.

“December’s Dilemma: The Creche, the Dreidel and the Star,” (1997) by John J. Michalczyk. Etoile Productions.

“The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust," (1992) by John J. Michalczyk. Etoile Productions.

Exhibitions:

• 2006, September 7. Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Missions in the Far East.

In the 500th anniversary of the birth of Francis Xavier (1506-1552), the Jesuit Institute and the John J. Burns Library at Boston College offered an exhibition of early printed works relating to his biography and posthumous cult, as well as to the subsequent Jesuit enterprise in the Far East where Xavier labored for ten years and died on a small desolate island off the coast of China.
Curator: Franco Mormando.

A university is a place where scholars create and inculcate new knowledge.