The University of Scranton to Host Award-Winning Author Stephanie Saldaña Author Stephanie Saldaña returns to Scranton to discuss “What We Remember Will Be Saved” at the Ignatian Values in Action Lecture Oct. 10. “There are always hidden historians among the survivors of war. These are the people who carry the stories of what happened with them when they escape, so that the past can be remembered,” wrote author Stephanie Saldaña in the prologue to her award-winning book “What We Remember Will Be Saved.” “(T)hey carry these stories not in books but through little things. A sapling, a spoon, a scarf, a recipe for eggplants stuffed with walnuts, a prayer in a dying language.” Saldaña will speak about her book at The University of at the 2024 Ignatian Values in Action Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 10. The event, which is offered free of charge and open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Byron Recreation Complex on campus. The book was selected for the University’s “Royal Reads” program for the incoming class of 2028. The program encourages all incoming students to read a designated book during the summer and to attend the lecture in order to create a shared experience among the students and expose them to the Ignatian values at the core of the University’s mission. Throughout their first-year students will encounter themes of the “Royals Read” selection repeated in classes, extracurricular opportunities and other special events. Saldaña’s book, “What We Remember Will Be Saved: A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry,” narrates the experiences of Syrian and Iraqi refugees through their stories and the belongings they carry. “I have met those who save the past simply by speaking it aloud, who write the dead into living by planting a tree. This book is about these historians and the stories they rescue. It is also a chronicle of war and migration told to me by those who managed to stay alive,” wrote Saldaña, who traveled to nine countries to learn the stories of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. “In time, I began to hear stories: Of a young musician from Homs, Syria, who crossed the sea with his violin wrapped in cellophane. Of Syrian mothers teaching their children recipes for egg-plant jam in the refugee camps of Lebanon. … (T)he small things they salvaged not mere fragments but windows into the histories they were now entrusted with remembering and transmitting to future generations,” wrote Saldaña. “What We Remember Will Be Saved” was the 2023 Christopher Award Winner and 2024 Excellence in Religion Reporting Award Winner for Nonfiction. A journalist and scholar, Saldaña discussed her book “The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith,” at the University’s Ignatian Values in Action Lecture in 2019. The book was selected for the Royals Read program for Scranton’s class of 2023. She also wrote “A Country Between: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide,” which was published in 2017. The Ignatian Values in Action Lecture series is meant to introduce students, and the larger community, to the mission and core values of the University. Since 2012, the annual event has invited individuals to speak on topics related to the tradition of meaningful service inspired by Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. First Year Seminar students at the University are required to attend the Ignatian Values in Action lecture. Students will swipe their ID cards at entrance stations to be counted in attendance. For information about the event, call 570-941-7520.
University of Scranton to Host Author Discussion Roosevelt Montás, Ph.D., author and senior lecturer in American studies and English at Columbia University, will present “Liberal Education for Human Freedom” at the Sondra and Morey Myers Distinguished Visiting Fellowship in the Humanities and Civic Engagement Lecture on Thursday, Feb. 10, at The University of Scranton. The lecture, sponsored by The Gail and Francis Slattery Center for Ignatian Humanities, will begin at 5:30 p.m. at Moskovitz Theater DeNaples Center. At Columbia University, Dr. Montás teaches “Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,” a year-long course on primary texts in moral and political thought, as well as seminars in American Studies including “Freedom and Citizenship in the United States.” He served as the director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College from 2008 to 2018. He is also the director of the Center for American Studies’ Freedom and Citizenship Program in collaboration with the Double Discovery Center. Dr. Montás speaks and writes on the history, meaning and future of liberal education and is the author of “Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation” (Princeton University Press, 2021). “‘The West’ as a category is, of course, itself problematic … the banners of “Western civilization” and “Western culture” have been used to give cover to imperialist, racist and colonialist agendas and to justify the subjugation and exploitation of “non-Western” people. But the term is also used to describe something more legitimate: a large and porous cultural configuration around the Mediterranean Sea, with strong Greco-Roman roots, that served as the historical seedbed for the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and much of what is called ‘modernity,’” wrote Dr. Montás in an opinion piece published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on Nov. 16, 2021. “While the European continent figures prominently, the tradition incorporates defining elements from non-European sources like the Arab world, ancient Egypt and North Africa, and even the East. It is a tradition rife with fissures, where overturning the past is preferred to venerating it. Loose and fractured as this tradition of contest and debate is, key aspects of the modern world emerge from it. The tradition matters not because it is Western, but because of its contribution to human questions of the highest order.” Dr. Montás earned his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. His research specializes in Antebellum American literature and culture, with a particular interest in American citizenship. For the lecture, the University will follow current health and safety guidelines as outlined in the Royals Back Together plan, which include the wearing higher grade masks (e.g. N95, KN95 or KF94) or double masking (e.g. a cloth mask worn over a surgical mask) in indoor spaces on campus. For more information about the lecture, contact Matthew Meyer, Ph.D, professor of philosophy and faculty director of the University’s Gail and Francis Slattery Center for Ignatian Humanities, at matthew.meyer@scranton.edu.
