September 24, 2026
What does it mean to love the world when that world is marked by war, displacement, violence, and deep division?
That was the central question posed during the first Vincentian Chair of Social Justice lecture, “How to Begin in the World,” delivered by Anna Rowlands, Ph.D., this year’s holder of the Chair.
Dr. Rowlands, a scholar of political theology and social philosophy at Durham University in the United Kingdom, will deliver four lectures during the academic year centered on the work of 20th-century thinkers Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. The lecture was held on September 14 in the D’Angelo Center on the Queens, NY, campus.
“In the current climate there was a genuine attraction to bring to St. John’s a scholar who specializes in political theology and social philosophy” said Rev. Patrick J. Griffin, C.M. ’13HON, Executive Director, Vincentian Center for Church and Society. “Professor Rowlands’s expertise in these areas helps to provide insight into our world not always appreciated.”
Fr. Griffin added that the work of Ms. Arendt and Ms. Weil, despite thinking very differently, will provide the foundation for the series as it explores this year’s theme, “How to Love the World: Thinking Love and Justice in Difficult Times with Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil.”
Dr. Rowlands discussed the parallel lives of two women caught in the upheaval of Europe during World War II.
In the summer of 1940, Ms. Arendt and Ms. Weil separately fled Paris as Nazi Germany advanced into France. They never met, but over the following years traveled some of the same refugee routes, lived in some of the same cities, and encountered overlapping communities of exiles and resistance figures. Both eventually reached New York City, although Ms. Arendt would make the city her home for decades while Ms. Weil remained only briefly.
Their experiences shaped very different approaches to questions that remain recognizable today: What do people owe one another? How should societies respond to difference? What happens when political systems or technology reduce human beings to abstractions? How can people resist violence without losing sight of the humanity of others?
Despite their disagreements, Dr. Rowlands said both thinkers were deeply concerned with the value of the human person. For Ms. Arendt, the fact that people are different from one another was not simply something to tolerate, but part of what makes a shared world possible.
“There is no escape into love, only a passage to love,” Dr. Rowlands said.
She also emphasized Ms. Arendt’s belief that human beings retain the capacity to act, rebuild, and create something new, even after catastrophe. She described them as “free to begin again even in the ruins.”
Earlier in the day, Dr. Rowlands joined students from the Introduction to Conflict Resolution course taught by Fred P. Cocozzelli, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Government and Politics, for an informal luncheon and discussion in St. Thomas More Church.
Among them was Colin Creighton, a homeland security major and United States Navy veteran who served aboard the USS Ross near the Black Sea. He said Ms. Weil’s commitment to solidarity challenged the way he had previously thought about conflict.
“The willingness to be in solidarity is fascinating,” he said. “It’s a radically different way of thinking that I have never experienced. So, to learn about it today, is a little eye-opening. That tells me I need to learn more.”
Dr. Rowlands noted that willingness to reconsider familiar ideas about power, responsibility, difference, and human dignity will frame her remaining lectures as she asks what it might mean, in an unsettled world, to love it nonetheless.