Lecture Series - Online
Please join us as BC Beyond Lifelong Learning presents our Spring 2024 Lecture Series!
The purpose of this series is to provide lifelong learning opportunities with Boston College faculty and administrators on a wide variety of topics, including local and world history, science, technology, social issues, the arts, and more. We are pleased to offer a series of lectures and conversations each Fall and Spring semester to Boston College alumni, friends, and community members.
Spring 2024 Lectures - Online
Wednesdays, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. ET
Onsite McMullen Museum Tour:
Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
- Online participants are required to have a computer with video and audio capability.
- Participants must create a Zoom account in advance according to Boston College security requirements.
- All lectures offered online via Zoom will be recorded; recordings will be available to registrants for two weeks following each lecture.
- These programs have a maximum capacity to allow for participant engagement.
Registration Options:
- Register for individual lectures for $15 each or register for the entire lecture series for $90.
- Register for the entire lecture series plus the onsite McMullen Museum tour for $100.
- Register for the McMullen Museum tour separately for $10 (includes light refreshments).
REGISTER TODAY
Register early to avoid disappointment!
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenter: Robert Ross
As a rising power, China seeks a revised regional order. The United States, the status quo power, resists change. Greater competition and strategic tension are inevitable. Chinese diplomacy reflects its determination to weaken U.S. presence on its perimeter. The U.S. has responded with heightened regional military presence and greater military cooperation with its partners. U.S. trade and technology policies reflect its resistance to China’s rise and its intent to maintain U.S. global leadership.
The United States insists that it wants to cooperate with China, yet it blocks many Chinese imports. Given U.S. policy, China does not cooperate with the U.S. on nuclear proliferation regarding North Korea and Iran. Any mutual interest in cooperation is offset by mutual efforts to win the competition.
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenter: Brian K. Smith
On January 5, 2023, New York City's Department of Education restricted in-school access to ChatGPT just a little over a month after its public debut. Since then, there have been numerous conversations and debates over the potential costs and benefits of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools in education. This presentation will share some of the things we've learned a year later about ways that students and educators have used genAI in higher education to enhance learning, increase efficiency, and … yes, occasionally to cheat. We'll also look forward to consider ways that genAI might change our conceptions of what is necessary to learn, and how this generation of tools can amplify existing capabilities.
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenter: Jeffrey Bloechl
The idea that Christianity is a distinctive way of life is both as old as the remarks that Jesus and Paul make about the relation of their community to the Roman Empire, and as new as modern attempts to distinguish the life of Christian faith from secular life and indeed lives of other faiths. In this lecture, we will explore these two philosophical approaches to Christianity as a way of life, examine some of their similarities and differences, and offer some thoughts about what this may mean for the self-understanding of believers in the early 21st century.
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenter: Michael McCarthy, SJ
After a brief overview of the history of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and its antecedent institutions, the lecture will discuss its present activity, its impact on the world, and a sense of its future in service of the Church and the world.
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenters: Jeffery Howe and Nancy Netzer
The outstanding gift of 30 paintings and drawings by the Lynches to Boston College’s McMullen Museum provides a rich perspective on the development of American art and culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Heade, Albert Bierstadt are just a few of the major artists included. The works represent iconic images of exploration of the American west, the arctic seas, the Hudson River Valley, New England, and even the Brazilian rain forest. In addition to the images of discovery, there are meditative pictures of domestic pursuits that capture a cultural moment. This lecture will present all thirty works, highlighting a few to showcase the broader development of American art and society, and to embody the excellent taste of the collectors.
Onsite at the McMullen Museum, Boston College, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Presented by: Director Nancy Netzer and McMullen Museum Docents
The recent gift of 30 paintings and drawings from Carolyn and Peter Lynch to Boston College’s McMullen Museum provides a rich perspective on the development of art and culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in America. Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent are a few of the major artists included.
Join us at the museum as we explore the Lynch collection and other outstanding American and European paintings on view, as well as the Spring 2024 exhibition, The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde, curated by Prof. Elizabeth Goizueta. Featuring nearly 150 ceramics and paintings from premier private and gallery collections, this exhibition explores the artistic influence of several little-known women ceramicists on Cuban abstract painting.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Online via Zoom, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Presenter: Jonathan Laurence
Constitutional democracies are under pressure from authoritarian parties, but how unique are the challenges currently facing representative politics? This presentation from the director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy will give an overview of current trends across the democratic and democratizing countries around the world. Professor Laurence will discuss changing public attitudes towards politics, and how the prospects for democracy have evolved in Europe and the United States over the past generation.
About the Presenters
Program Pricing
General Admission
General Admission for the Lecture series is as follows:
- Register for individual lectures for $15 each or register for the entire series for $90.
- Register for the entire series plus the onsite McMullen Museum tour for $100.
- Register for the McMullen Museum tour separately for $10.
No discounts are available.
General Information:
You must be 18 years old to participate in the BC Beyond Lifelong Learning Lecture Series and the McMullen Museum Tour. All sales are final; we are not able to offer refunds. Registrations may not be transferred to another person or to another course, workshop, or program.
Online registration is required to participate in the program. The fee for individual lectures is $15 each; the fee for the entire lecture series is $90; the fee for the entire lecture series plus the museum tour is $100; the fee for the museum tour alone is $10, to be paid by debit or credit card. Registrations will be processed upon receipt of payment. Payment is due in full in order to enroll.