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April 2023
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students in the Klingler College of Arts & Sciences,
This month has provided ample evidence of the excellence that characterizes our College.
Nine of our faculty colleagues were honored at the Distinguished Scholars Reception
on April 4. You can read about the awards here. The work of these colleagues crosses the natural and computational sciences, social
sciences and humanities. I am so proud of their achievements; please join me in congratulating
them.
That excellence continued with Arts & Sciences Week from April 11–14, featuring thought-provoking
and values-informed events that converged around questions of self and world. Memoirist
Patricia Hampl argued that memoir is not just “personal” but rather shows a self in
the process of contending with the world. She urged us to trust our ability to just
look and describe what is in front of us. Br. Guy Consolmagno S.J. cautioned us with
the title of his Coyne Lecture: “Your God is Too Small.” He shared awe-inspiring images
such as those captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. I appreciated his emphasis on teamwork as the path to discovery, his evocation of
Laudato Si’ on the need to care for creation and his emphasis on the joy that arises when we encounter
the beauty of the universe. The week witnessed the launch of The Short End of the Sonnenallee, a novel by Thomas Brussig translated from German to English by renowned novelist Jonathan
Franzen and our colleague Jenny Watson. Brussig emphasized the importance of memory,
and Franzen invoked the power of the humanities. Set in East Germany in the 1980s,
the novel treats serious topics with humor; Franzen remarked that “when you can laugh
about something, things are different.” He also noted that the novel shows “there
is such a thing as a community capable of love and forgiveness.” The week concluded
with a panel on mind-body issues co-sponsored by the Medical College of Wisconsin
in the series “Big Questions at the Intersection of Bioscience and Religion.”
All of this work—that of our award-winning colleagues and that reflected in Arts &
Sciences Week—shows that “the difference is in the and.” More specifically, the integration we invoke in this and is distinct from that critiqued by philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in his book Critique of Cynical Reason. The “And” described by Sloterdijk is the “and then, and then, and then” which he
notes characterizes our contemporary world, especially the mass media where the most
incongruous images and bits of information are juxtaposed in a constant, confusing
stream. Sloterdijk’s “And” substitutes for—and indeed prevents—real thought or reflection.
It risks undermining the integration we need and seek.
A commitment to integration will continue to inform our College’s contributions to
Marquette’s Strategic Planning 2030 efforts. In that spirit, I commend to you a talk that Fr. Arturo Sosa S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, gave on “Discerning
the Present to Prepare the Future” for Jesuit universities. He stated: “Making the
university a space of discernment helps to overcome the tendencies to fragmentation
that exist in secular society.” I hope you will continue to enjoy the Easter season
and find ways to integrate body, mind and spirit; work and life; your own endeavors
and community goals.
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring
ways we can all work together for the common good.
Dr. Heidi Bostic
Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
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