Inside the Core

Inside the Core, we are looking forward to a presentation to be held at 2 p.m., Tuesday, February 11, in the Core Center (Mooney 339) and on Teams, by two faculty members teaching in the Core. Stephen Adubato and Francesca Zaccaron will present on New York Encounter, an event in which they are both involved and about which they are excited to share with their colleagues and students.

New York Encounter is a three-day event (this year, February 14-16) held in New York City and focusing on topics linked to faith and culture. Past editions of New York Encounter featured presentations on how the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and Simone Weil—in their own distinct ways—offer paths around the shortfalls of modern Enlightenment thought. In this upcoming presentation on Tuesday, February 11, professors Adubato, who curated both the Nietzsche and Weil exhibits, and Zaccaron will highlight the relevance of the New York Encounter presentations on these authors to the main themes in the Core 2 curriculum and will also give a preview of the happenings at New York Encounter 2025, scheduled for February 14-16. Here is the link for this year’s New York Encounter.

As you can see if you click on the link, this year’s event is themed around Dante, a key figure in Core I, as it takes its title from Dante’s precursor to his Divine Comedy—The New Life, in which he describes his first encounters with Beatrice and the initial and powerful impact she had on his life as a poet and as a man. Some highlights from this year’s New York Encounter include a presentation on “Who Is My Neighbor? Looking at immigration through the eyes of immigrants and those who welcome them,” with Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, moderated by Jackie Adrette, managing director, AVSI USA. Sister Norma has spoken at Seton Hall, and she has also been highly praised by Pope Francis. Another highlight is a presentation titled “The beauty of it smote his heart … and hope returned to him (J.R.R. Tolkien),” focusing on hope in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, with Michael Drout, professor of English, Wheaton College; Corey Olsen, president of Signum University and Mythgard Institute; and Giuseppe Pezzini, associate professor of Latin language and literature, Oxford University, moderated by Annie Thompson, teaching fellow, St. John’s College.

Two other highlights include “Can the Past Be Healed? A face-to-face meeting with Fr. Zachariah Presutti, S.J., founder of Thrive For Life Prison Project Inc., and Leo Schofield, wrongly imprisoned for 35 years,” moderated by Hannah Chesterton, assistant professor of criminology, The Catholic University of America, and “What We Do and Do Not Know—A presentation on global warming and climate change” with Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of atmospheric science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and David Romps, professor of earth and planetary science, University of California, Berkeley, moderated by Massimo Robberto, branch lead of the Near-Infrared Camera of the James Webb Space Telescope. These few highlights should be enough to whet your appetite.

Professors Adubato and Zaccaron will also share about the upcoming New York Encounter, as well as their past experiences with it in relation to the Core. They bring their own interesting backgrounds to their teaching as well as to the presentation itself. Stephen G. Adubato is an adjunct professor at Seton Hall and an editorial fellow at Compact Magazine. He has published articles in America, First Things, The New York Times, Hedgehog Review, and other venues. Francesca Zaccaron, Ph.D., is the Toth-Lonergan Scholar for the second year and the director of Anthropologica - Journal of Philosophical Studies (Jacques Maritain Institute, Trieste, Italy). Besides teaching for CORE and CAST, she has also been leading Praxis sessions (mission-oriented faculty development sessions, sponsored by the Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership) and featuring the thought of Bernard Lonergan. Their presentation promises to be interesting in itself and a wonderful prelude to New York Encounter. Please join us!

If you cannot join us in the Core Center, where we will also serve light refreshments, please join us on Teams.

Categories: Arts and Culture, Faith and Service