Community Muralism and Feminist Approach to Justice

The College of New Rochelle will present the 2013 Elvira M. Dowell ‘36 Lecture "Community Muralism and Feminist Approaches to Justice” on March 5, 2013 at 7 p.m. in the Mooney Center Romita Auditorium on the College’s Main Campus.

This lecture will be given by Maureen H. O’Connell, associate professor of theology at Fordham University, where she teaches social ethics, religion and politics, and theological aesthetics.  Professor O’Connell is the author of If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice which explores the arts as a source of ethical wisdom and catalyst for moral action. She also co-edited a collection of essays by 12 feminist scholars on that same topic titled She Who Imagines: Feminist Theological Aesthetics.

In If These Walls Could Talk she draws from her deep knowledge of both murals and many of the people involved in their creation. Professor O’Connell tells the story of how Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program successfully brought together artists, community activists, inner-city neighborhood residents, churchgoers, scholar, pastors, and simple lovers of art to spread a message of social justice and tolerance.

Following the lecture, which is free and open to the public, there will be a reception and a book signing. 

The Dowell Lecture series, sponsored by the Women’s Studies Department, School of Arts & Sciences, and presented annually by CNR, was endowed by Dr. George B. Dowell in memory of his sister, Elvira M. Dowell, a 1936 graduate of the School of Arts & Sciences at the College.

For more information, please call Susan Canning at (914) 654-5275. Or e-mail: scanning@cnr.edu. For directions to the College, go to www.cnr.edu.