Symposium to examine “white privilege”

Author: Katherine Malkovsky

Art

An interdisciplinary symposium titled “White Privilege: Implications for the Catholic University, the Church and Theology” will be held March 26 to 28 (Sunday to Tuesday) in McKenna Hall at the University of Notre Dame. Sponsored by Notre Dame’s Department of Theology, the symposium is free and open to the public.

Designed to raise consciousness about the dynamics of white privilege as a form of racism, the symposium will seek to identify structures of white privilege within the church, the academy and society. Various theologians will engage the work of prominent scholars of race theory in the fields of law and the social sciences. The format of the symposium will encourage discussion among all participants.

Jon Nilson, professor of theology at LoyolaUniversity, will deliver the keynote address, “Seeking Sadness: Unmasking the ‘Blessings and Bearing the Burdens of White Privilege,” at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. A full schedule is available online at www.nd.edu/~wpconf. To register online, visit marketplace.nd.edu/cce/ on the Web.

The event is sponsored by Notre Dame’s Departments of Psychology, Sociology and Africana Studies; Institute for Latino Studies; Institute for Church Life; Office of Student Affairs; Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism; Center for Social Concerns; Catholic Social Tradition Program; Pre-College Program; Graduate School; Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts; College of Arts and Letters; Henkels Lecture Series; and Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.