Public Lectures On St. Mary's Campus in January

Leadership and African-American Catholic traditions and popular culture and modern-day slavery.

These are topics speakers at St. Mary's College in Moraga will address in January. As part of the college's month-long Jan Term, when students are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones and explore new intellectual territory, speakers come to address classes and give free lectures on campus that are open to the public.

The following listings come from St. Mary's College:

• Tuesday, January 8, 2013, 7 p.m.
Jason Connell
 “Changing the World 101” Soda Activity Center
Jason Connell is the executive director of Ignited Leadership, a dynamic Washington, D.C.-based human service organization that is dedicated to building a better world, one leader at a time. Jason has volunteered in some of the world's poorest regions and has learned first-hand of the dire challenges – and profound rewards – of truly making a difference.

• Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Father Edward Branch & the St. Columba Gospel Choir 
“Soulful  & Sacred: Celebrating the Black Catholic Experience”
  Soda Activity Center & College Chapel
Rev. Edward Branch is the Catholic chaplain for the Lyke House at the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of historically African American institutions of higher education that boasts the largest concentration of scholars of African heritage in the world. He has served as university chaplain and director of campus ministry at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and Grambling State University in Louisiana. In recognition of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Father Branch will speak on the distinctive experience and journey of Black Catholics in America
6:30 p.m.  Reception Honoring Saint Mary’s African American Alumni.
7:30 p.m.  Concert in the Chapel. Celebrate the joyful wonder of Black Catholic gospel music with a special January Term cultural celebration by Oakland’s Saint Columba Gospel Choir, directed by Rawn Harbor, one of the nation’s preeminent African American Catholic liturgists and composers.

• Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 7 p.m.

Kaya Oakes
 “Unlikely Inspiration” Soda Activity Center
Kaya Oakes is the author of Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, the poetry collection Telegraph and Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church. Oakes is also co-founder of Kitchen Sink, winner of the Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Magazine. Oakes earned both her undergraduate degree and a MFA in creative writing at Saint Mary’s College of California and teaches in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Thursday, January 31, 2013, 7 p.m.

Lisa Kristine
 "Shining a Light on Modern-Day Slavery"  
Soda Activity Center
Acclaimed humanitarian photographer Lisa Kristine specializes in images of remote indigenous cultures in more than 100 countries on six continents. Lisa spent a year traveling the world to document modern-day slavery – into the heart of broiling brick kilns, down rickety mine shafts and into the hidden lairs of sex slavery. Her recent book, Slavery, has received global attention. She will share the stories behind her images - and how she bore witness to horrible abuses and to astonishing glimpses of the indomitable human spirit.

During Jan Term, one group of St. Mary's students is going to Cambodia to teach English and learn about the culture. You can follow them on their blog.