From the Director

YEAR IN REVIEW

“How do you ever know for certain you are doing the right thing?”

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)

Each summer the new McNeill Justice Fellows read Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. Doerr’s exquisite novel is the World War II story of a blind French girl and her unlikely friendship with a young German soldier. Like many novels depicting this era, it is a tale of unrelenting horror. But it is also a story of hope, small mercies, and glimpses of deep humanity (or “light”) only made visible through a relationship of encounter.

Toward the end of the novel, the narrator asks, “How do you ever know for certain you are doing the right thing?” Echoing Spike Lee’s iconic 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, and Michael Sandel’s 2009 book phenomenon, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? Doerr problematizes the pursuit of justice. For Doerr, even when there is good intention and clarity of purpose, both how to pursue justice and whether it has been achieved can remain opaque. Indeed, Doerr questions the very possibility of attaining justice. Instead, he holds on to the human capacity for mercy and the possibility of grace.

For several weeks this past winter, as I came into Geddes Hall each morning and left each evening, I found facilities workers and their families braving the cold and darkness to slip into the building just to admire a new mural in the main stairwell. It is a mural celebrating Building Services staff at Notre Dame—a group of individuals who simultaneously make everything the University does possible but are rarely fully visible to all. The mural was a collaboration between students, faculty, local artists, and the facilities workers themselves who, through photovoice methodology, shared their stories as inspirations for the mural. It is hard to describe what it was like to observe the joy and hear the proud laughter as family and friends found their mothers, fathers, sisters, or closest friends in the mural.

This mural was definitely the right thing to do. No, it was neither a piece of pathbreaking scholarship nor a life- saving intervention. It was neither an innovative new course nor an exciting new partnership. But engaging in the collaborative research that shaped the mural was a transformative experience for the participating faculty, staff, students, and community members.

In proximity, they understood something that would not be visible at a distance or safe remove. Through humble encounter, the mural brought light and warm humanity to an otherwise very cold, dark, and deeply unsettling winter. It also reinforced the importance of proximity as a way to both understand and affirm the inherent dignity of others in all that we do here at the Institute for Social Concerns. Indeed, proximity and what it makes possible were recurrent themes for much of what we did this year at the Institute.

We don’t often have annual themes for our work, though we might look back across the year and see patterns. This year was different. Last October, acclaimed death penalty lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, spoke to a crowd of almost 1,000 at the Morris Performing Arts Center in downtown South Bend. Faculty, students, staff, and community members were together transfixed. Like the calls to the margins from Pope Francis, Stevenson urged the audience to get proximate to those who are suffering. Stevenson noted, “It’s in proximity to the poor that we hear things that we don’t otherwise hear, that we see things that we don’t otherwise see.” As with Francis and Doerr, justice and human dignity are inextricably linked and only effectively approached through encounter.

Justice is necessarily a relational pursuit. For Francis, a culture of encounter on the margins is what it means to see the world as it really is and to put our faith into action. Stevenson implores us to get proximate because without proximity we can’t effectively address the challenges we collectively face. For Doerr, proximity and encounter— kindness amid devastation—is a source of inexorable beauty and grace. With Stevenson’s words, those of us at Institute had a collective moment of revelation. Proximity was not just an implicit theme for much of our work; it was an explicit lens to understand and a methodology for doing our research, teaching, and engagement with communities locally and globally. That evening offered a rare, magical moment of profound collective understanding that both inspired and activated all who attended. Equally important, it reframed our work.

This year has been a time of significant accomplishment here at the Institute—new faculty and postdoctoral fellows, new grants and publications, new courses and exciting lectures. But as the year ends, I realize once again that it is the way we do our work—in proximity—that offers more than a list of accomplishments. At the Institute, the “how is the wow” because it offers the sublime possibility of shared transcendence and flourishing. It is in these spaces of possibility that faith in and hope for a more just future are cultivated.

SUZANNE SHANAHAN
Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director
Institute for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame