The Kennedy Lecture is an annual event that is the gift of Thomas and Richard Kennedy, in memory of their parents, Keith and Joan Kennedy. This series aims to challenge us and to stimulate thinking by engaging prominent persons in the field of religion and ethics.
19th Annual Kennedy Lecture featuring Hadia Mubarak, Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. Video:
Hadia Mubarak is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at Guilford College. She previously served as a research fellow with the New York Abu Dhabi Research Institute in the Humanities (2017-2018), where she worked on her monograph on women in modern Qurʾanic commentaries. Mubarak taught as a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2015-2017) and a visiting lecturer at Davidson College (2015-2016). Mubarak completed her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University, where she specialized in modern and classical Qurʾanic exegesis, Islamic feminism, and gender reform in the modern Muslim world. Her current publications include, among others, “Change Through Continuity: A Case Study of Q. 4:34 in Ibn ʿĀshūr’s Al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr” (Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 20.1 February 2018); “Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34” (Hawwa 2.3); and two forthcoming book chapters, “Classical Exegeses of Key Qur'anic Verses Concerning Women” in the Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women (forthcoming) and “Gendered Islamophobia: Muslim Women in the Wake of a Trump Presidency” in The Body Politic: Bodily Experience in a Post-Trump World (Sense Publishing, 2019).
The Kennedy Lecture is an annual event that is the gift of Thomas and Richard Kennedy, in memory of their parents, Keith and Joan Kennedy. This series aims to challenge us and to stimulate thinking by engaging prominent persons in the field of religion and ethics.
Kennedy Lecture Committee
Peter Judge, Chair
Cynthia Aziz
Christine Pearson
Cyndi Rios
Suzie Shermer
Joan Guthrie
Fr. James Shea SJ
Past Lecturers
2018 Bishop George V. Murry, S.J.,Chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. “The Times Demand it, the Gospel Demands it: Confronting the Sins of Racism”. See the video at this link: Bishop George Murry Lecture 2018
2017 Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ “Save the World or Savor It? Being Reached by the Widow, Orphan and Stranger.” See the video at this link: Greg Boyle St Peter Kennedy Lecture 2017 Download Video as MP4
2016 Gerard Mannion, DPhil., Amaturo Professor in Catholic Studies at Georgetown University “Remembering the Future and Re-engaging the People of God: Pope Francis and Vatican II”
2015 Edwina Gateley “Discipleship: Giving Birth to God in a Contemporary World”
2014 Rev. Daniel Groody, CSC “Dying to Live: Migration,Human Trafficking and Theology”
2013 Rev. Bryan Massingale, S.T.D. “The Dark Nights of Malcolm X: Catholic Spirituality and the Challenge of Social Justice”
2012 Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ “The Heavens Proclaim: Astronomy and the Search for God”
2011 Fr. William O’Neill, SJ “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and Its Theological Origins”
2010 Margaret O’Brien Steinfels “Reinventing Catholic”
2009 Edward Kessler “Challenges in Jewish-Christian Relations”
2007 Shawn Copeland “Who is My Neighbor?”
2006 Thomas J. Reese, SJ “Survival Guide for Thinking Catholics”
2005 Luke Timothy Johnson “Faith and Possessions”
2004 Susan A. Ross “Women’s Work as Unopened Gift”
2003 James F. Keenan, SJ “Living With an Adult Conscience”
2002 Stanley Hauerwas “Why the American Way of Death is not the Christian Way”
2001 Megan McKenna “Parables: Visiting the Kingdom”
2000 Sidney Callahan “Tomorrow’s Church: New Roles for Men and Women”