Vincentian Chair of Social Justice 2026–27 Lecture Series

You are invited to attend the first lecture in the Vincentian Chair of Social Justice lecture series, How to Love the World: Thinking Love and Justice in Difficult Times with Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, on Monday, September 14, from 1:50 to 3:15 p.m. in the D’Angelo Center Ballroom.The lecture is entitled, “How to Begin in the World.”  

Each year, the Vincentian Chair of Social Justice selects a justice theme with the help of the wider St. John’s University community. National and international scholars then contribute to the theme’s exploration.  

The four-lecture series will explore the lives and legacies of Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, two Jewish social philosophers who engaged deeply with Christian sources and bequeathed to us a rich body of work on questions of love and justice. Both contribute to the canon of 20th-century political theology, demonstrating the need for community, as well as the dangers of the violence we can enact in the name of community. 

They hold differing views on critical topics such as the place of transcendence in social justice, and the utility and limits of rights. Both women were refugee thinkers, whose philosophy is reshaped by the experience of loss and flight, uprootedness, and exile. New York City is part of that story, and these lectures will weave the story of the refuge they find in New York into the narratives of their lives and ideas.

The lecture is presented by Anna Rowlands, St. Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion and the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, UK.

For those unable to join us in person, the talk will be recorded and live-streamed. Visit stjohns.edu/VCSJ to register and for more information.