How can we flourish while facing challenges and difficulties in our world today?
This lecture series is presented by the Lin Great Speakers Series and the Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series.
We seem to be in a time of stress and anxiety. Politics are divisive. Social media makes us compare-and-despair. We worry about the safety of our families and communities. We worry about our future. These feelings are mixed with different desires. We want money and security, happiness and fulfillment. We want the same for our friends and family.
This fall, the St. Mary’s University Center for Catholic Studies will reflect on this question and invites you to participate in the conversation with four engaging lectures.
Lin Great Speakers Series
Beyond Burnout Culture
Featuring Jonathan Malesic, Ph.D.
Author, The End of Burnout
Wednesday, Sept. 11
7 p.m. | University Center, Mengler Conference RoomWe work and work and work and do not get ahead. Worse, work can take over our lives. This is what happened to Jonathan Malesic, Ph.D., so he quit his job and sought out a better way to live. In this talk, he will share what he learned. Drawing on his book, The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives, Malesic proposes that we should ground our working lives in human dignity, compassion for workers and a greater emphasis on leisure as a meaningful activity. He will show how these ideals are rooted in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and manifested in communities of Benedictine monks and religious sisters.
Jonathan Malesic, Ph.D., is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Chronicle of Higher Education, America, Commonweal, Notre Dame Magazine, The Guardian, The Hedgehog Review, and elsewhere. His writing has been recognized as notable in The Best American Essays four times and in The Best American Food Writing. His latest book, The End of Burnout (University of California Press), was selected as a best book of 2022 by Amazon and the Next Big Idea Club. It is being translated into 10 languages. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious studies from the University of Virginia and teaches writing at Southern Methodist University.
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The Eucharist, Miracles and the Shroud of Turin
Featuring Scott French, M.D.
Board-certified Emergency Physician
Tuesday, Oct. 8
7 p.m. | University Center, Mengler Conference RoomRecent research has demonstrated that the secular world belief that faith and science are incompatible, as well as relativism, has had a devastating effect on our children. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an even steeper rise in despair and suicide among our youth, and now has become a crisis. Drawing on his work on the medical/scientific evidence that the Eucharist is the living blood, body, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, French will talk about how the Eucharist, Eucharistic miracles and the Shroud of Turin can help us navigate the problems we face in our culture today.
Scott French, M.D., is a practicing board-certified emergency physician who noted the rapidly increasing rates of depression, suicides and other behavioral disorders among our youth. In the process of searching for a solution, French was able to view the Shroud of Turin in 2015. This spurred a search for the full truth, and ultimately led Scott to The Rev. Robert Spitzer’s Magis Center in 2015, where he subsequently became a volunteer and board member.
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Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series
Belonging to the Body of Christ: Pauline Images and the Work of Caring
Featuring Allison Gray, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Theology and Greek, St. Mary’s University
Tuesday, Nov. 12
7 p.m. | Mengler Conference RoomAs the U.S. Surgeon General noted in 2023, loneliness affects more than 60% of the people in the United States. Its negative health effects are about the same as smoking several cigarettes a day. Humans were not made to be alone. Drawing from her book, Reforming the Household of God: Paul’s Model of Belonging, St. Mary’s Associate Professor of Theology and Greek Allison Gray, Ph.D., will talk about how St. Paul’s understandings of the Church can foster belonging through care and community building.
Allison L. Gray, Ph.D., studies the New Testament and early Christian literature of the first four centuries C.E. Her research focuses on tales about saints, martyrs and miracle workers. She examines how biographers adopt and adapt features of Greco-Roman literature from their contemporary world to present Christianity to a variety of readers. Gray teaches courses on New Testament texts and their historical contexts, including the religions and philosophical traditions of the Roman Empire. She also teaches a two-semester sequence of Koine Greek, the language used by New Testament authors and their contemporaries. Gray is the recipient of the 2019 Alice Wright Franzke Feminist Award and the 2020 Distinguished Faculty Award.
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Depression as a Wilderness Experience: The Bible as a Resource for Life with Depression
Featuring Jessica Coblentz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, Saint Mary’s College – Notre Dame
Thursday, Nov. 21
7 p.m. | Mengler Conference RoomThis lecture will reflect on depression. This mental health challenge saps motivation and purpose from people. There are no easy diagnoses of its causes and no easy treatments. Jessica Coblentz, Ph.D., studied this in her book, Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression. In her talk, she will explore the idea of wilderness in the Bible to help think about and navigate depression.
Jessica Coblentz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She is also a 2024–2025 Visiting Scholar at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. Coblentz is the author of Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression (Liturgical Academic), which won the 2023 Best Book Award from the College Theology Society. Coblentz’s writing has been featured in popular venues such as the National Catholic Reporter, U.S. Catholic, America and Give Us This Day, where she is a regular contributor. Before working as a theologian, she served for several years in Roman Catholic national and diocesan religious education, parish young adult ministry and college campus ministry. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston College.
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Contact Us
For more information, contact the Center for Catholic Studies at centerforcatholicstudies@stmarytx.edu.