Baylor University’s Great Texts Program Welcomes Guest Lecturer to Discuss Relationship Between Italian Cinema and Questions of Faith

March 17, 2015
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Media contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321

WACO, Texas (March, 17 2015) – Baylor University’s Honors College and Great Texts Program will welcome Millicent Marcus, Ph.D., to the Pence Lecture Series at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, in the Alexander Reading Room.

Marcus is a professor of Italian and film studies at Yale University where she specializes in medieval literature, Italian cinema, interrelationships between literature and film and representations of the Holocaust in post-World War II Italian culture.

She will present a lecture titled, “The Restless Priest and the Reluctant Pope: Nanni Moretti’s Journey from ‘The Mass is Ended’ to ‘Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope).’”

“Dr. Marcus will be looking at the change in director Nanni Moretti’s approach to questions of faith and how his work has developed,” said Phillip Donnelly, Ph.D., associate professor of literature and director of the Great Texts Program. “The broader topic of her lecture is how people in general deal with these questions.”

Marcus is the author of several books, including “Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism” and “Italian Film in the Shadow of Auschwitz.” For her current project, she is studying contemporary Italian cinema within the theoretical framework of post-realism.

“Contemporary film is part of the Great Texts Program’s conversation about how our understanding of the world relates to the ways we act in the world,” Donnelly said. “Contemporary film is a central part of that conversation as it addresses how what we know and imagine relates to what we love.”

The lecture series is sponsored by Susan and Robert Pence and the Great Texts Program and is designed to share the riches of Italian culture with Baylor students.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Alexander Reading Room is located inside Alexander Residence Hall at 1413 S. Seventh St.

For more information about the Honor’s College lecture series, click here.

by Ashton Brown, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805

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Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 16,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.