Catholic Social Tradition (CST)

An introduction to the field of global development, with particular focus on the various disciplines that have contributed to and shaped the development discourse. Readings, lectures, and discussions will draw from various disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, environmental and technological sciences, public health, law, and gender studies, among others. We will examine debates on the meaning and measurement of development; alternative approaches to, and methods in, the study of development; and attempts to address some of the main development challenges facing the world today. There will be a central focus on understanding "what works" in development. Working together in teams, students will conceptualize and design an international development project using "real world" constraints.

The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with the tradition of Catholic social teaching with a view toward developing skills for critical reading and appropriation of these documents. We will examine papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerum novarum (1891) up to the present time, identifying operative principles, tracing central theological, ethical, and ecclesial concerns, and locating each document in its proper historical context. We will hold recurring themes in conversation with the broader theoretical framework of Catholic social thought and relevant secondary literature. Finally, students will examine some foundational topics in the early weeks of this course, such as the Biblical roots of CST, its natural law underpinnings, and its ecclesiological influences. This course must be completed in the first two semesters once the CST Minor has been declared.

This course examines the interrelationships between economic injustice and violence. It begins by investigating the gap between rich and poor both in the US and worldwide. We also look at the history of Christian thought on wealth and poverty. We then address the ways in which economic disparity intersects with the problem of violence in both domestic (violence against women) and political realms (war and revolution). Next, we canvass Christian thought on the use of violence. This raises the question of whether Christianity itself contributes more to violence or to peace. Finally, we pose the question of whether forgiveness for violence is advisable or feasible.

Using the method of community-engaged learning, requiring 20 hours of work in the South Bend community, this course will afford students the opportunity to explore the theology and practice of the Catholic social tradition. Students will combine social analysis with theological reflection in integrating their site experiences. In conversation with primary texts of the Catholic social tradition, the course material will consider a variety of thematic issues through an ethical lens, including education, health care, restorative justice, racial justice, power relations, environmental justice, and structural violence. This course satisfies the core course requirement for the Catholic Social Tradition Minor. The goals of this course include: -that students will emerge from the course with a deepened historical and thematic understanding of the Catholic social tradition, as well as insight into its significance for their own vocational journeys; - that students develop the skill of correlating theological insight with other disciplinary perspectives in particular contexts of application; - that students will thoroughly process and integrate their site experiences with the course readings and class sessions, particularly through the practice of keeping an Integration Notebook.

This course will explore the theology and practice of nonviolence as a form of askesis, or spiritual discipline. The material will include readings from Scripture, the early Christian tradition, and Catholic social teaching. Religious sources outside the Christian tradition will include Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Badshah Khan. This course will use the method of community-based learning and will require 20 hours of service at particular sites in the South Bend area.

This course is an introduction to environmental sociology, the sociology of food, and Catholic social teachings on creation, solidarity, human dignity and rights, and social justice as they relate to the environment and food issues. The course has two directly linked central purposes. One is to learn descriptive and analytical sociological perspectives on environmental and food issues, as well as related matters of agriculture, globalization, consumerism, rural America, health, social movements, and human futures. A second purpose is to learn Catholic social teachings on the environment and food issues, in order to deepen our capacity to reflect normatively from a particular moral perspective about crucial social problems. Achieving these two purposes will require us recurrently to engage the sociological and the Catholic perspectives and contributions in mutually informative and critical conversation. This is fundamentally a sociology course, but one in which Catholic social ethics stand front and center. In other words, this course will engage in multiple, ongoing exercises of "reflexivity," engaging the sociological imagination, issues of environment and food, and Catholic social teachings - to consider what possible fruitful understandings each may provide for and about the others. Students need not be Catholic (or even religious) to benefit from this course, but everyone must be open to learning about and reflecting upon Catholic ethical teachings as they relate to the environment and food. This course will explore a number of interconnected substantive issues, descriptively, analytically, and normatively. These will include technological development, energy consumption, global warming/climate change, neoliberal capitalism, interests of nation states, corporate power, the role of mass media, population dynamics, the maldistribution of wealth, political decision-making, the status of science, ocean environments, extreme weather, sustainable development, environmentalist movements, agribusiness, nutrition, food supply systems, hunger and obesity, organics, fair trade, localism, agrarianism, human dignity, the common good, the option for the poor, the universal destiny of the earth's goods, creation care, and the moral goods of solidarity, subsidiarity, and participation, among other relevant topics". This class also meets the CAD requirement.

More than a century before African slaves were trafficked to the Virginia colony in 1619, Christopher Columbus transported captured indigenous peoples of the New World to Spain. The dispossession and enslavement of non-Europeans in the colonization of the Americas was justified by Christians but also condemned by Christians with different political and economic interests. This development course in theology introduces students to the challenging intersection of faith, slavery, and freedom by exploring key figures and events that have shaped the complex historical legacy of Christianity in the Americas, a hemispheric past that remains ever bound together. In addition to Christianity's role in colonial expansion and racial ideology, the course especially considers how faith in God provided a catalyst for the empowerment and resistance of the oppressed and their advocates in shared struggles to attain greater justice, equality, and independence. From the "Protector of the Indians" Bartolome de las Casas to St. Oscar Romero, and the "the Black Moses" Harriet Tubman to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the course explores these and other extraordinary figures of hope who risked their lives in the Americas to both protest grave social injustices and promote authentic expressions of faith. To confront this turbulent past theologically, students will examine idolatry, migration, land, liberty, poverty, and the common good as normative categories with ongoing significance in the face of contemporary social crises affecting the most vulnerable peoples and the environment.

This course is intended to be a second level theology course that introduces fundamental principles of Catholic moral theology and Catholic Social Teaching, as oriented specifically for those preparing to enter the business world. As such, students will be encouraged to think in theological categories about business and ethics, and to appreciate how these categories bring the light of faith, in unity with the insights of human reason, to bear on the purpose of business and the possibility of virtuous engagement in this profession within a just and humane society.

The course will explore twentieth and twenty-first century labor in the U.S. from historical, literary, and theological perspectives, and is designed at the 20xxx-level to attract a broad range of students. Our historical study of labor questions and movements will pay particular attention to the evolution of labor unions and their political challenges and impact, but we'll also look at laborers outside the sphere of organized labor (domestic workers and other non-union workers), as well as the persistence of and challenges to racialized and gendered identities that long segmented labor markets and restricted some from unions. Throughout these historical explorations, we will spend significant time visiting the life stories of select individuals (often in their own words), foregrounding the tangible intersectional nature of work and the politics of work, and showcasing the importance of family, community, solidarity, and faith in many labor activists' own careers. A mix of Catholic and non-Catholic perspectives might include Samuel Gompers, Terrence Powderly, Jane Addams, John Ryan, Florence Kelley, Rose Schneiderman, Pauli Murray, Dorothy Day, George Higgins, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, George Meany, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Mary Kay Henry, and Rich Trumka. Alongside our historical readings, we'll probe the representation of labor, laborers, and class differences in literary works - short stories, novels, and plays - by writers whose own class and ethnic backgrounds vary widely, using the tools of close reading and historicist criticism. Our reading list will highlight Catholic writers such as J. F. Powers, Pietro di Donato, Hisaye Yamamoto, Edward P. Jones, Toni Morrison, and Lolita Hernandez, but for comparison will also include works by well-known figures such as Frederick Douglass, Jack London, Tillie Olsen, and John Steinbeck. As we analyze literary works, we'll pose questions about aesthetics and canon formation: What narratives most provocatively explore work? Why are some labor activists attracted to experimental forms while others insist on social realism? Can a worker's speech or diary or song "count" as literature? All our historical and literary readings will intersect with our readings in CST, ranging from Pope Leo XIII's papal encyclical on labor, Rerum Novarum, to Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness, to John Ryan's A Living Wage, to Monsignor George HIggins's lifetime of engaged scholarship. The tenets of Catholic teaching about labor will inform all our discussions about historical events and literary representations. We will also ask students to explore the Higgins Labor Program's new Just Wage Framework and Online Tool, considering ways that historical and literary approaches to "just wage" questions might inform this multistakeholder tool rooted in CST and designed to encourage employers, workers, advocates, policymakers, and community groups to discern, dialogue, and debate policies that promote a Just Wage.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the basic teachings and practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, and teach them how to think theologically about these religious traditions. We will begin with an overview of contemporary Christian theological approaches to religious pluralism, focusing on 1) the theology of religions, 2) interreligious dialogue, and 3) comparative theology. Following this introductory unit, the remainder of the course is designed to teach students how to do comparative theology, by which we mean the practice of entering deeply into the world of another religion, in order to be both challenged and enriched by their religiosity. This undertaking will involve introducing the foundational texts, traditions, beliefs, practices, etc., of each of these religions; considering how various Christian thinkers have, historically, approached these religions; and finally, responding theologically to both the challenges and the opportunities posed by these traditions. The course will be structured around a major research paper, due by semester's end.

Students will work with a South Bend neighborhood to explore a structural challenge and, with the guidance of a local artist, respond to this challenge alongside community members in creating an artistic piece that serves the good of the neighborhood. This seminar will also provide a "hands-on" experience as students are exposed to practices of participatory research methods and the art-making process.

Self discovery. Personality Development. Communication Styles. Social Engagement. This course will explore a better understanding of self, a more differentiated look at the other person, looking at individual strengths and stretches, and cultural and religious differences to find out how one can best contribute to a common good oriented society. In this class, we will study Carl G. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, and his terminology and understanding of the human person, especially the inner world, our Self. How do our personality types support a certain world view? How can we look at God, Religions and Spirituality from a psychological perspective? How can a symbolic understanding of tradition and biblical stories, as well as dreams, help us in our inner development and our individuation process? This course will encourage you to think in images and not just words and numbers, thus the course will incorporate Visual Arts in different ways. There will be assignments that encourage creative engagement.

This one-credit colloquia will examine the understanding of sustainability and the care of creation in the Catholic Social Tradition. There will be an examination of how we fulfill God's call to practice sustainability in an age when we have the capacity to alter creation significantly. This course will also discuss sustainability in a way that respects and protects God's creation, and provides for the common good, as well as for economic and social progress based on justice. Areas explored will include the practice of sustainability on campus, in the community, and in the developing world. Leaders in sustainability practices will be invited as guest lecturers. Students will be required to research and present a project that would assist with increasing sustainability.

The core purpose of the Pacem in Terris 60 Years colloquium is to explore the thematic peace and justice issues that have been addressed by modern Catholic social thought, especially those within the encyclical such as human rights, political structures, ecumenism and environmentalism. In order to garner original and creative insights from the speakers, they are being asked to address the gaps that exist within the document and how the Church today can move forward in the promotion of peace and justice in our pluralistic world. This colloquium is connected to the Justice Sown in Peace: Celebrating 60 Years Since Pacem in Terris Conference, and is not a lecture course. Students are expected to participate in the conference and attend at least 4 of the 5 keynote lectures and keynote panels (schedule will be on conference website socialconcerns.nd.edu/cst2023). Full participation in the conference is strongly encouraged. Participation in the conference will constitute 60% of the grade. Students need to register for the conference (there is no cost for students). Conference registration (in addition to registering for the course) is mandatory for participation in this colloquium.

The Catholic Church boasts a rich tradition of reflection and action on war and peace. This course introduces students to the most well-known and well-developed part of that tradition: just war and pacifism. But it goes further and considers the relationship between the just war-pacifism strands of the tradition and the development of a theology, ethics and praxis of peacebuilding - i.e., the Church's approach to conflict prevention, conflict transformation and post-conflict reconciliation. In considering these topics, the course will emphasize (1) the "living" nature of the tradition, the link between theory and practice, principles and policy; and (2) the importance of grounding ethics and action on war and peace in an understanding of Christian vocation. Drawing on my seventeen years as a senior official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and my current role as coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, the course will examine these broad topics in light of specific cases and issues, including the Iraq interventions, humanitarian intervention, nuclear disarmament, the landmines campaign, the role of the UN, conscientious objection, the Church's role in Track Two diplomacy and truth and reconciliation processes, and other issues. Students will have an opportunity to engage directly with Catholic leaders who are working on these issues. This course will also afford students the opportunity, primarily through a research paper, to contribute to the Catholic Peacebuilding Network's (cpn.nd.edu) work in the Philippines, Colombia, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and South Sudan. Other course assignments will help students develop their written and oral skills in applied ethics through policy memos, opinion pieces (or blogs), homilies, and video-taped media interviews. There will be no in-class exams.

This one-credit colloquia will examine a holistic approach to practicing pro-life policies in the Catholic Social Tradition. There will be an examination on the connections between the dignity of the human person and economic justice, as well as discussion of tensions which occur within society and church structures. Often the faith institutions are critiqued as caring only about the child in the womb, so there will be some focus on charity and justice efforts provided after children are born. There will be experiential learning with local sites to see how they are addressing the issue. Areas explored will include adoption, abortion, childcare, gun violence, and women in poverty. Students will be required to research and present a project which would assist women and children in crisis.

This one-credit colloquium will examine some of the aspects of the theology of disability in relation to the development and advancement of Catholic social doctrine. Both physical and mental disability issues will be analyzed. There will be experiential learning with local community sites to see how they are addressing some disability issues. Students will be required to research and present a project which would assist in lifting up the disability community.

This course will address sustainability in the context of the local academic community and its institutions. In conversation with the recent papal encyclical, Laudato Si?, On Care for Our Common Home, this course will provide students with interdisciplinary opportunities to explore the challenges of sustainability and develop collaborative strategies for making our common campus homes more sustainable. Students will be invited to examine the course materials in conversation with the mission of the Congregation of Holy Cross through immersion at each of the campuses and encounters with professionals whose work impacts sustainability.

This research seminar enlists undergraduates in the interdisciplinary efforts of the Just Wage Initiative (JWI), a collaborative research and advocacy project of the Higgins Labor Program at the Center for Social Concerns. Students will undertake research in two ways: First, they will contribute to the JWI by locating resources, marshaling evidence, and writing short reports, potentially for public use on our website. These tasks are assigned by the instructor; second, they will undertake individual research projects stemming from their own intellectual interests but dovetailing with the broader JWI agenda, producing an essay and making a presentation at semester's end. Here they will be mentored by the instructors, but they will drive that process. As this is a one-credit, letter-graded course, students will engage for roughly three hours per week throughout the semester, meeting every three weeks for 2.5 hours to discuss assigned readings, report on research progress, make presentations, and brainstorm future projects. In addition to the meetings, there will be short weekly writing assignments, plus a longer, 8-10-page essay due at the end of the semester.

This 1-credit colloquium is for Catholic Social Tradition Minors & others interested in social justice. The 50th anniversary of one of the most powerful social justice statements by Catholic hierarchy, Justice in the World, will be celebrated in 2021, which will culminate in a virtual conference by the Center for Social Concerns with global scholars on March 25, 26 and 27. This colloquium will examine the implications and historical developments from the 1971 World Synod of Catholic Bishops statement, Justice in the World. Participants will be required to attend 6 hours of conference presentations during the three days of presentations and provide a thorough analysis of the impact of this seminal document, how it connects with the lectures, and the impact on the social justice issues of our time.

"The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim 6:10). In this course, we examine the truth of St. Paul's claim by considering the Christian understanding of the vice of avarice (or "greed"). Is a desire to accumulate wealth or possessions compatible with one's duties as a Christian? What does God want us to do with our money? Can we be condemned for failing to give our excess wealth to those in need? Can we measure the value of a person, her daily activities, or her labor in purely monetary terms? Can the vice of avarice afflict rich and poor alike? In this seminar, we will explore such questions through a reading of selected texts from Sacred Scripture, prominent Christian theologians, papal encyclicals, and secular as well as non-Christian authors that focus on the morally appropriate attitude toward wealth accumulation as well as our personal obligation to donate our excess wealth to those in need. Along the way, we will explore how the vice of avarice might help us to analyze different contemporary issues (e.g., payday lending, income disparity, short-selling, and foreign aid).

This course is an exploration of theological perspectives that shape our views on incarceration and will provide the context for the formation of a theologically informed response to the realities and injustices perpetuated by the U.S. system of incarceration. Special attention is paid to Catholic engagement on incarceration. Students will be asked to reflect and imagine restorative interventions and ways in which a theologically oriented approach to incarceration questions systems and structures. Final projects could include engagement with connected issues such as; the school-to-prison pipeline, the experience of returning citizens, mandatory minimums, parole systems, private prisons (and investment therein), etc.

This colloquium course on CST and technology fulfills the colloquium requirement for the Catholic Social Tradition minor. In this course, students will learn how the Church's social teachings can be applied to the development and evaluation of modern technologies in order to limit their alienating effects and guide their design towards the promotion of human flourishing. The technologies discussed in this course will include social media, robots, and artificial intelligence.

Students selected to participate in the ND Bridge summer program enroll in this course exploring the ethics of encounter in local, domestic, and global contexts. Students will develop their awareness of what justice looks like in society, how systemic injustice is perpetuated by division, self centeredness, apathy, etc., and a growing sense of their role as agents of social change. Previously held ideas around identity, politics, and culture will be interrogated. The course will enable students to competently practice contemplation and action, as informed by the principles of ethical encounter, personally and professionally.

This course will offer a systematic introduction into ethics from a global perspective discussing global moral challenges. It will negotiate the local and the global and offer "contextual ethical reasoning." Global ethics has emerged both as a term and as a (sub)discipline over the past few decades. The dynamics of globalization has cultivated a sense of global citizenship; the experience of limits of local contexts in dealing with challenges such as climate change and migration have motivated a sense of global problems, problems that affect the entire planet and the whole of humanity. This course will follow an approach to global ethics in conversation with key principles of the Catholic Social Tradition: human dignity, common good and solidarity, subsidiarity, integral ecology.

Underwriting Action takes students through the creation of the key components of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as it moves towards Integral Human Development (IHD). The course uses case studies to examine the context behind the creation of key writings and principles in CST, as well as to understand how CST is interpreted, used, and understood by people around the world. The “correct” interpretations of CST are often debated in various circles, emphasizing different elements of the teachings without reference to their context; the case studies will thus enable students to understand CST in its complexity, priming them to make their own informed decisions about CST and Integral Human Development in their own work and practice. By taking students through the contextual developments and applications of CST from its inception in the 1890s to the present day’s understanding of IHD by looking at diverse topics such as Polish positivism, the Northern Irish Civil Rights Movement, the Colombian Civil War and Liberation Theology, and Indigenous Restitution Movements, the course weaves together a truly global story of the influences and impacts of belief on policy and community through the lens of CST and IHD.

Social Entrepreneurship has sparked dialogue and debate for two decades. Its very definition is much debated, as well as its capacity to create sustainable, scalable, systems-changing impact. This course explores the theoretical concepts, practices and strategies associated with the dynamic discipline of social enterprise and innovation. For our purposes, social entrepreneurship is the landscape, of which paradigm-shifting solutions like microfinance, MSME (Micro-Small-Medium Enterprise) development, bottom of the pyramid, fair trade, impact investing, and the like, are components. This course will study many of these concepts, focusing on their opportunity for social impact, and as a vehicle for wealth creation in vulnerable and disenfranchised communities across the globe. Further, the course covers examples of various social enterprise models (for-profit, non-profit, hybrid), requiring students to analyze and devise strategies to improve the efficacy of these ventures. Finally, the course engages students in research seeking to advance the field of social entrepreneurship at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Notre Dame.

Do you want to learn how to solve problems that matter? Human Centered Design (HCD) is an empathetic tool that utilizes guided questioning related to product, service, or systems innovations to identify opportunities for sustainable, human-centered impact. For example, how might we design a cookstove that reduces the amount of smoke inhaled by a community member? How might we design a new service engaging low-income borrowers in rural communities? How might we design a system linking social innovators and their innovations to users across the globe in a manner that encourages collaboration and sharing of resources? Whether a social innovator is designing in the private, public or nonprofit sector, HCD provides a valuable framework, deeply rooted in empathy, and is an excellent methodology for social innovators who want to problem solve and design alongside communities. In this course students will be introduced to the HCD toolkit and will apply it in practice, either in a domestic or international context. This fast-paced course will take students through the HCD cycles of inspiration, ideation and implementation, and provide opportunities for student and community collaboration.

Explore the responsibility inherent in using, creating, and developing new technology. Students will begin with the following questions: What is justice? How does Technology promote or reduce justice? Does it do both? We will engage these questions through ancient frameworks such as the thinking of Aristotle and through modern frameworks outlined in Catholic Social Teaching. We then turn to the question of what scientists and engineers owe their creations, which we address through engaging with the classic literary work, Frankenstein. Finally we will look into the relationship between technology and economy through the lens of community. We will ask how we actually create meaningful change and what systems are at play. We will read the work of technology ethicists and economists as well as moral theologians. Technologies and economies work together and against each other to create community; we will explore how to create and promote a just future.

Put your education to work for justice. The study of justice—discerning how to know what is right, just and fair---is an ancient, multi-disciplinary pursuit. This interdisciplinary course offers students a foundational understanding of this rich theoretical tradition while also providing them with the research tools and skills to both explain and indeed respond to today’s most challenging questions of justice in the areas of environment, labor, incarceration, migration, poverty, and technology. What does it mean to live and act justly, both individually and collectively? Explore the answers in Doing Justice.

This three-credit letter-graded fall semester course is restricted to students currently participating in the Summer Service Learning Program (SSLP). To learn more about the SSLP, please visit the website at https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/sslp. Only students accepted to the SSLP and who have signed a contract for a placement are eligible to take this course. Students enroll in the course for the fall semester following the SSLP, but coursework is distributed before, during, and after the summer immersion concluding in September. This course provides students with an introduction to an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and responding to poverty, with lectures from experts in History, Political Science, Gender Studies, Poverty Studies, Theology, and Sociology. Students in this course will gain skills and resources for the demanding work of providing direct services to individuals living in poverty, while also developing capacity to critically analyze contemporary social issues. While the course will equip students to identify causes and symptoms of inequality and poverty, it also endeavors to provide students with a Catholic moral framework for evaluating competing notions of justice and to be able to propose and defend cogent moral arguments for constructive courses of action to alleviate suffering and injustice. The weekly themes of the course are drawn from the Catholic social tradition, such as human dignity, solidarity, the common good, and the preferential option for the poor. The course examines these concepts from within the religious context of Catholic thought by way of weekly readings of foundational Scripture passages, papal social encyclicals such as Laudato Si and Solicitudo rei socialis, and contemporary Catholic theologians. Weekly assignments ask students not merely to factually relate Catholic tenets, but to inhabit the moral perspective of Catholic social tradition and to offer first-person arguments for how members of society ought to respond in the face of human suffering and inequality.

The point of this course is that the Eucharist—the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ—commits us to work for justice and peace for the poor, workers, the unborn, immigrants, refugees, and the entire earth. The course is built around five public lectures with Drs. Clemens Sedmak, Margaret Pfeil, William Cavanaugh, Fr. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas. These public lectures will be followed by personal conversations with the class. The first class meets on Wednesday, January 17 (4:30-5:30) and five more Wednesdays : January 31, February 14, February 28, March 20, and April 17. The public lectures begin at 4:30, followed by Q & A, and class conversations conclude by 7:00. Dinner (pizza, salads, cookies, drinks) will be served. Requirements for this course include one-page responses to the lectures and one final reflection essay, oral conversation, or group discussion to be arranged with the instructor.

A total of approximately 1.4 billion Catholics are found in virtually every country in the world. Since the 1960s their global religious community, the Roman Catholic Church, has embraced the mission of advancing integral human development as a comprehensive approach to Catholicism's commitment to upholding the God-given dignity of every person, regardless of race, religion, creed or any other marker of identity. What difference do Catholics make in a world beset by growing inequality, human rights violations, poverty, war, and the environmental and refugee crises? Focusing on the United States, Brazil, the Philippines, Uganda and Italy, this course examines the impact of Catholics and the Church in these countries, with an emphasis on the modern history and contemporary social, political, cultural and interreligious dynamics of each. Students will be expected to master the comparative narratives of regions and countries where Catholics might be expected to make a difference, and to focus on one country in depth.

Gender has been fundamental to the organization of nearly all human societies, but what gender has meant in terms of identity, opportunity, and economic activity has varied widely across time and space. This course will explore gender at work in US history, taking a chronological approach to show gender's evolution and ongoing intersections with class, race, age, religion, region, and sexuality from 1776 to the near present. The term "gender at work" expresses a double meaning here - first, it connotes that this is a labor history course, with an emphasis on the ways gender has operated at the workplace; second, it suggests the ubiquity of gender in shaping Americans' lives, experiences, and imaginations not only at the workplace, but also in formal politics, informal communities, and every space in between. By exploring the ways gender has been both omnipresent and contingent throughout US history, students should better understand - and perhaps act upon - seemingly intractable contemporary conundrums involving questions of equal opportunity and pay, household division of labor, work-life balance, and the proper relationships among employers, workers, households, and government.

This course explores the relationships among and between workers, employers, government policymakers, unions, and social movements since the end of World War II, as well as the ways in which those relationships have shaped and been shaped by American politics and culture more broadly. The United States emerged from the Second World War as the globe's unequaled economic and political power, and its citizens parlayed that preeminence into a long postwar economic boom that created, however imperfectly, the first truly mass middle-class society in world history. At the heart of that new society was the American labor movement, whose leaders and members ensured that at least some of the heady postwar profits made it into the wallets of workers and their families - and not just the wallets of union members, as working Americans generally experienced great improvement in wages, benefits, and economic opportunity during the quarter-century ending in 1970. During those same years, civil rights activists challenged the historic workplace discrimination that kept African Americans at the bottom of the labor market, confronting the racism of employers, unions, and the government, and inspiring others, primarily Mexican Americans and women, to broaden the push for equality at the workplace. Since that time, however, Americans have experienced a transformation in the workplace -- an erosion of manufacturing and the massive growth of service and government work; a rapid decline in number of union members and power of organized labor; and unresolved conflicts over affirmative action to redress centuries of racial and gender discrimination. Meanwhile, income inequality and wealth disparities have grown every year over the past three decades. What accounts for the decline of organized labor since 1970, and why have the people of the mythic land of milk and honey experienced declining upward mobility and widening gaps between the rich and everyone else? Are these phenomena linked? What has the decline of the labor movement meant for workers specifically, and the American economy and politics more broadly? How and why have popular perceptions of unions changed over time? What has been the relationship of organized labor to the civil rights movement, feminism, modern conservatism, and the fortunes of individual freedom more broadly? What is globalization, and what has been its impact upon American workers? Through an exploration of historical scholarship, memoirs, polemical writings, and films, this course will try to answer these questions and many others. It will also address the prospects for working people and labor unions in the twenty-first century.

This interdisciplinary research lab enlists students in the interdisciplinary efforts of the Just Wage Initiative (JWI), a collaborative research and advocacy project of the Higgins Labor Program at the Center for Social Concerns. Students will help develop, refine, and update the Just Wage Framework, a multistakeholder online tool designed to advance a more inclusive and equitable economy. Students will also undertake research projects connecting their own intellectual interests and disciplinary expertise to the JWI's foundational question: What makes any given wage just or unjust? In addition, students will collaborate with the instructor and local, national, and international practitioners to envision and execute advocacy campaigns to promote a just wage economy. Extended weekly class sessions will facilitate visits by scholars and activists, interactive group discussions, and collaborative experiments.

In 1964, when Martha Reeves sang, "Calling out around the world/Are you ready for a brand new beat?/Summer's here and the time is right/For dancing in the street," was she beckoning listeners to join a party or the civil rights struggle? Or both? From spirituals sung by enslaved workers to protest anthems shouted at union rallies, music has provided the soundtrack to social justice causes throughout American History. Whether performed by rank-and-file reformers or famous recording artists -- from Frank Sinatra to Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and beyond -- popular music has accompanied and sometimes fueled transformations in American politics, culture, and social life. In this course students will explore American popular music in its many forms -- blues, country, jazz, folk, rock, punk, disco, hip hop, tejano, and more -- to understand its power and limits as both a force for social change and a window into major themes of the American experience.

This course will devote the first part of the semester to establishing an account of the historical roots of the current affordable/low-income housing crisis in the United States, paying particular attention to the local St. Joseph County context. It will also introduce students to the housing “continuum of care” in the City of South Bend, noting the various institutional and governmental agencies currently involved in addressing housing needs as well as the gaps in coverage, e.g., the need for a permanent low-barrier intake center and more permanent supportive housing (PSH). The second part of the course will involve constructive and innovative engagement as students collaborate on specific research projects introduced in the first part of the course. Students will have the opportunity to network with area housing agencies and local government entities as well as research best practices in other urban areas. During this segment of the course, students will engage with experts in the field, both virtually and in person. This work will lead into students’ constructive proposals for a concrete contribution to meeting the current low-income and supportive housing needs locally, regionally, and/or nationally. All these signs of the times will be held in conversation with the Catholic social tradition, exploring the concept of housing as a human right and duty in service of the common good. We will also use the CST concept of integral ecology to understand the social, economic, and ecological aspects of the current housing crisis, in conversation with Laudato si’, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical.

The course adopts an entrepreneurial perspective in exploring the role of business in helping to address the poverty challenge in developing and developed economies. The multi-faceted nature of poverty and its implications when it comes to business and entrepreneurship are explored. Attention is devoted to venture creation as a pathway out of poverty, and to how the larger business community can be leveraged in poverty alleviation efforts. Students will examine case studies and meet low income entrepreneurs.

This course examines the origins, development, and continued relevance of Catholic social teaching (CST), providing a comprehensive overview of modern CST through examination of key papal encyclicals and Church documents. Participants will be guided through a study of key documents, learning about their application to contemporary social issues. This course is intended to give students a rich grounding in the social doctrine of the Church, and students will apply CST to topics of social concern, including poverty, migration, democracy, globalization, homelessness, and the environment. Students will also gain a deep understanding of foundational concepts such as human dignity, the common good, solidarity, and integral human development. Finally, taking the “field hospital” image of the Church that Pope Francis calls for, this course concludes with asking what would our anticipated professional vocations look like if informed by ideas such as the common good and solidarity? Classes will be participatory and interactive; student engagement is welcomed with peer-to-peer learning a feature in addition to lecturer input.

This course examines global poverty through the lens of Catholic social teaching. Poverty implies more than lack of income or wealth; as Pope Francis reminds us, the worst form of poverty is exclusion. Rising levels of poverty and inequality result in the exclusion of many people from full social, economic, cultural participation, and hinders the realization of several human rights. The dignity of all human beings, made in God's image and likeness, is a foundational theological belief within the Christian tradition. But how might this theological statement help us understand the damaging effects of poverty, and how can CST more generally critique prevailing economic assumptions that disproportionately benefit the wealthy? Students will examine the global dimension of poverty and inequality by studying its impact on health outcomes, education, women's empowerment, and democracy. In addition to studying CST principles such as integral human development, solidarity, and the common good, students will draw from the work of economists like Amartya Sen who advocate for a human capabilities approach to development. Case studies will help illustrate the ways in which CST principles can inform local responses to injustice, for example, micro-credit initiatives in Bangladesh. Bringing together the capabilities approach and CST allows for deeper intersectional thinking on issues concerning poverty, inequality, global health, and the empowerment of the poor. Classes will be participatory and interactive; student engagement is welcomed with peer-to-peer learning a feature in addition to lecturer input.

Racial Justice in America is focused on the historic and current impact of racial injustice and the urgency of the work of racial justice today. Racial Justice in America will invite course participants to consider how the stories of the struggle for racial justice in the United States shapes our imaginations for the work of racial justice today. The centerpiece of this course is a required spring break immersion to major civil rights locations in the South. Additionally, students will read/reflect on how we tell the stories of racism in the United States and will create their own narrative/reflective account of their experience with racism and the civil rights movement sites. There are no class meetings. There is a required immersion over Spring Break.

How has the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, and raw material shaped contemporary Christian ethics and social teachings? Has the Catholic pursuit of virtue and the common good driven climate change? Is there a need to “decarbonize” Christian concepts, cultures, and communities? While the concept of decarbonization is most commonly applied to technology, policy, and the economy, what would a “decarbonized” vision of human flourishing and the common good look like? In this course, we will generate responses to these questions by examining the extent to which fossil fuels have shaped Catholic concepts of moral virtue, human dignity, and the common good in the modern world, as well as how Catholic moral and social teachings can inform a just transformation of energy systems. In recent years, scholars from multiple disciplines have argued that there is a two-way influence between the material properties of things, like coal and oil, and human values and cultural ways of life. These dynamics are the object of our study in this course. In addition to engaging with developments in history, we will also explore emerging models of non-carbon intensive human flourishing and the common good as well as the virtues and practices needed to sustain them. Throughout the course, each student will conduct a case study of one moral virtue or Catholic social principle both to examine how it has been “carbonized” and to develop an argument about whether or how it should be “decarbonized.” This course in energy and environmental studies engages with perspectives drawn from history, environmental/climate studies, ethics, theological studies, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. There are no required prerequisites.

This course explores the interaction of thinking and action for justice, of cognitive science and social change. In this contested moment, how might we examine the ideas with which we think as we envision social transformation and work toward solidarity and the common good? We will draw from psychology and neuroscience to understand how to overcome attribution errors, implicit bias, and motivated reasoning in work to promote justice. We will examine how assumptions about knowledge and our theories of mind impact our communication and work, and explore epistemic justice (who is invited to the table of knowledge). We will explore, in seminar format, means to promote intellectual humility, ethical imagination, practical wisdom, and commitment to action. Students will be encouraged to learn through experience and community engagement, and apply the lessons of the course in their own journeys.

This course will draw from multiple perspectives to foster a deep appreciation of human development and flourishing. Human development is complex and fragile, yet many splendored. Assumptions about human nature and capacities have critical and moral implications for how we create institutions (family life, education) and systems (policy, government). e challenge is to develop an integrated and ecological understanding of development in the context of human flourishing. We will begin with research in positive psychology on human development, considering the growth of reasoning, identity, moral imagination, and behavior. We will broaden the frame to include understanding of human capabilities from the perspectives of faith (including the principles of Catholic social teaching), culture, and work. Students interested in social change will benefit from a deeper understanding of human development and related research, discussed in a seminar format. Students will draw from their own developmental journeys and current engagements while exploring means to foster human flourishing in future contexts.

This research lab will employ an interdisciplinary approach to research on a range of issues related to mass incarceration. Collaborating with faculty, scholars, activists, practitioners, those impacted by systems of incarceration, and other classmates, students will develop, refine and implement a research project which contributes to the overall body of scholarship on incarceration. Students will be able to design projects (exploring moral, normative, and/or empirical etc. dimensions of incarceration) which connect their own academic and intellectual interests to emerging research questions at the Institute for Social Concerns. This research lab is open to students in all disciplines.

During this course, the student will gain a deeper understanding of their unconscious bias towards differently-abled people in society, and study theories of mindfulness, giving voice, empowerment, and existing public policies governing society’s acceptance of differently-abled people. This course focuses on the challenges those will disabilities face in their daily lives. It will look back at the history of how people with disabilities were initially treated, introduce the baseline on current policies, and subsequent laws that were established, to spotlight issues on inclusion and diversity, and other relevant social justice issues pertaining to this topic. Evin Hartsell shares his personal story in his book, Abled In A Disabled World, which he completed two weeks before his death in April 2018. Evin speaks directly to the reader by making an incredibly wise declaration at the beginning of his book, “I am the same as you, I just look different”. During this course, the student will gain a deeper understanding of their unconscious bias towards differently-abled people in society, and study theories of mindfulness, giving voice, empowerment, and existing public policies governing society’s acceptance of differently-abled people.

The course will adopt a broad anthropological perspective to introduce students to the cultural and utilitarian contexts of justice that speak to the everyday experience – urging students to rethink issues of education, health, wage, economy, immigration, peace, environment, and spirituality, including the issue of justice itself. We will read some classic and contemporary works on justice that may have (or have not) garnered attention in a world emerging from a pandemic. By the end of the course, students will learn how to use the framework of ‘just-ness’ in things they do on the campus, at home, offices, marketplaces, and inside other social and civil arenas – and unpack their drivers as budding scholars in the humanistic social sciences.

Environmental justice has emerged as one of the most significant frameworks shaping contemporary environmental policy and scholarship at local, national, and international scales. Less well known is that it originated and has been led at the grassroots level with social movements making connections between racial, gender, and economic justice, political empowerment, and vastly unequal exposure to environmental harms and hazards. In short, the meanings, values, strategies, and concepts that make up the environmental justice (EJ) framework have been driven by grassroots leaders and organizations with a transformative vision. This course in environmental humanities and social sciences examines this transformative approach to EJ as it has emerged in places as diverse as rural North Carolina, urban New York, Louisiana's “Cancer Alley,” tropical forests around the world, and most recently transnational networks of grassroots leaders responding to climate change. Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship in environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, sociology, anthropology, and politics, as well as analysis of primary source documents, this course equips students to analyze the dynamic relationship between human cultures and environmental realities at local and global scales. In particular, it equips students to answer questions such as: To what extent has the EJ movement been shaped by religion and culture? How do transformative approaches to EJ differ from other approaches? How do diverse concepts of the sacred, nature, and justice factor into contemporary debates about environmental and climate action? What moral and political resources do EJ communities draw on to sustain their commitments? What commitments inform students’ personal approach to EJ issues?

Immersion: Eight week summer service-learning placements This three-credit course of the Summer Service Learning Program takes place before, during, and after student participation in the eight consecutive week summer immersion sponsored by the Center for Social Concerns and the Notre Dame Alumni Association. The goal of the course is to reflect on the meaning and dynamics of Christian service, compassion and Catholic social teaching through experiential learning, reading, writing and discussions. Writing assignments include journal assignments and a final paper. The course is completed during the first five weeks of fall semester and is graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Acceptance is based on the student's application and interview. Contact the Center for Social Concerns for more information. Please note that students enrolled in the Spring THEO 33936 will meet for two 90 minute small group discussions, at a time to be determined with their small group facilitator. Students will select a small group time based on their availability.

This course is designed to introduce students to the cultural and social issues of the Appalachian region - its history, people, culture, challenges, and strengths - through study and experiential learning. The course also provides engagement with the people of Appalachia through a required immersion over break. The Appalachia Seminar utilizes a Catholic Social Tradition (CST) framework to build skills around social analysis, critical thinking, and theological reflection. Students examine the relationship between solidarity and service and consider how the Common Good is expressed in local communities across the region. This course has a fee.

The Catholic Social Tradition invites persons of good will to pursue a health care system that raises the dignity of each person. This seminar examines and assesses our current and evolving healthcare system, explores the possibilities and direction of the future of U.S. healthcare, and investigates how modifications might move us toward a society that reflects care for the common good. Students will travel to Washington, D.C., during Spring Break to spend time with policy makers, health care advocacy groups, medical professionals, and researchers.

This course provides undergraduate students an opportunity to reflect on their undergraduate education and to explore their respective vocations as it relates to the common good. Whether considering a change in major, deciding on postgraduate plans, navigating a relationship, or seeking greater intentionality in daily life, students in this class will accompany each other as they consider their vocation, learn different methods of discernment, and develop practices to listen and respond to these callings. Content will include Catholic Social Teaching, cultural critique, narrative theology, spiritual practices, and the arts. Must be a sophomore, junior or senior to take this course.

Solidarity and the City explores the principle and practice of solidarity in the context of U.S. cities. Students will examine the root causes of poverty and injustice in urban areas, will work on individual and group assignments that apply that learning to specific issues of justice, and will participate in a Spring Break immersion to a city to learn/work alongside partners engaging issues of particular importance in context.

Students are invited to experience the field of community organizing through engaging leaders from neighborhood organizations and faith communities who are actively confronting injustice and oppression. Students will analyze the contemporary situation of Midwest urban neighborhoods (Chicago, Indianapolis and South Bend), understand the role of churches influencing systems and structures, dialogue and build relationships with leaders, and participate in live social action campaigns. This experience and skillset will equip students to be agents of change by organizing for justice in their respective communities. This course requires participation in an immersion during the fall break. For additional information on this course please see https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/seminars. Please note, this course has extra required meeting times and/or events outside of the displayed meeting schedule. Please go to this course's designated webpage within the Center for Social Concerns website for further details.

The Catholic Church boasts a rich tradition of reflection and action on war and peace. This course introduces students to Catholic teaching on war and peace and how it applies to a range of pressing international issues. It introduces students to the most well-known and well-developed part of the tradition: just war and pacifism (or principled nonviolence). But it goes further and considers how the just war-pacifism debate must be considered in the wider context of a theology, ethics and praxis of peacebuilding - i.e., the Church's approach to conflict prevention, conflict transformation, and post-conflict reconciliation. While lived Catholic peacebuilding is most evident in the midst of conflicts from Colombia and Congo to South Sudan and Ukraine, Rome offers a global perspective on the Church's teaching and action related to peace. This course introduces students to the peacebuilding role of the Holy See/Vatican - the source of official Church teaching, a respected diplomatic actor on a wide range of justice and peace issues, and a catalyst for a proliferation of Catholic peacebuilding activities around the world. It also introduces students to the peacebuilding work of other key Catholic actors, such as Caritas Internationalis, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Focolare Movement, and religious orders.

This seminar will introduce students to the key texts that make up Catholic social teaching. The course concludes with asking what would our anticipated professional vocations look like if informed by Catholic social teaching. For instance, what would a law firm or health clinic look like if they were formed by ideas such as the common good and the option for the poor. COMMENTS: Must have fulfilled first university THEO requirement, preferably both university THEO requirements.

This course will explore how to solve complex development problems in the real world in development contexts. It will focus on case studies from international education and draw upon the work of pioneering organizations, leaders, scholars, and practitioners engaged in improving educational outcomes and opportunities for children, schools, and systems in Africa. The course will engage and integrate the experiences and problems of practice of top education NGOs and policy leaders to understand and explore the problems of innovation, scaling, sustainability, and government take-up and policy impact. It will draw upon systems thinking, various types of applied research, and policy analysis, and engage with the efforts of global and local institutions seeking to drive sustainable change.

Gustavo Gutiérrez famously posed a fundamental question for theological inquiry: how can we talk about God in the face of crushing poverty that leads to death? This course explores that foundational question through an examination of biblical perspectives on poverty, early Christian understandings of poverty, and contemporary theological and social scientific analyses and responses to poverty. The contemporary portion of the course tracks and draws on the earlier Christian tradition and its developments in Catholic Social Teaching, putting these sources into critical dialogue with recent social scientific studies of poverty, its causes, and policy solutions.

This class explores the use of marketing principles and concepts to support initiatives, causes and ventures that are social in nature. Attention is devoted to the marketing and communication challenges involved when attempting to do good, and how these issues can be overcome without spending large amounts of money. Sample topics include identifying and understanding target markets for social initiatives, constructing a value proposition, developing positioning approaches, designing communication programs, use of guerrilla techniques, the roles of price and place, and how to set goals and measure performance.

Students, in a structured format, are involved in assessing, prioritizing and creatively solving problems encountered by low-income and other disadvantaged South Bend entrepreneurs. A process consulting approach is employed and a number of useful tools and frameworks are introduced. Students work with both for-profit and non-profit enterprises, producing tangible deliverables that help clients launch, grow and sustain their ventures. In addition to class time, students will meet with clients on a weekly basis at a Notre Dame facility located downtown. Assistance with transportation will be available for students needing it. Class will meet on Tuesdays. On Thursdays, students will consult with local entrepreneurs in one hour blocks during the hours of 5p to 9p at the Center for Civic Innovation. This consulting time is flexible with students' schedules and based on appointments made by local entrepreneurs.

This course is set up on an individual basis to provide students the opportunity to reflect upon internship experiences in light of Catholic social teaching. Readings and requirements will be set up on an individual basis.

This course will be set up on an individual basis and allows students to pursue individual interests in the Catholic social tradition. Topics might include, for instance, poverty and policy, medical ethics, and so forth.

Research and writing on an approved subject under the direction of a faculty member.

The Capstone Course is the culmination of the CST Minor. This course draws together your understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, and aims to facilitate a piece of critical research that builds upon the learning of the Minor. Classes will combine structured reading, peer-to-peer learning via in-class presentations, and focused presentations that explore each student’s area of research. Students are required to write a 25-page paper that intersects with your other areas of study using the framework of CST. The first section of the course is based around structured readings that cover critical areas of theology, ecclesiology, and social teaching. In particular, students will familiarize themselves with key moments in the theological development of CST such as the renewal in moral theology and the ecclesial advancement of the Second Vatican Council. The latter part of the course provides students with the opportunity to explore their area of critical research and present their findings in class. Students are required to attend weekly classes and participate in class discussion.