Basic Needs and Justice: The Pursuit of Human Flourishing
January 20 – August 6, 2023
The ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵCore Curriculum (MCC) is the center of every ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵ student’s educational experience. The newly redesigned MCC aims to better connect students to their studies—and to the world—through a thematic, tiered approach. This exhibition is the fifth in a series that explores the five MCC Discovery Tier themes.
Basic Needs and Justice: The Pursuit of Human Flourishing explores the interrelationship between basic needs and justice. If something is so essential to human life that no human being can survive without it, then access to this basic need would seem to be a matter of justice. Yet the identification of these specific needs is not always straightforward. Determining how much of any given need one person requires is often complicated. Communities have formed and fractured over their answers to these questions, which demand both an understanding of the nature of the human person and a notion of what it means to live a fully human life. The works of art in this exhibition highlight this struggle. They showcase how different disciplinary approaches can help us recognize what humans truly need in order to thrive. And they inspire dialogue about how to create the conditions for everyone to have their basic needs met.
ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵfaculty members from across campus who have expertise (and often teach classes in) the Basic Needs and Justice theme in the ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵCore Curriculum have curated pairs of images that address, explore, and challenge both our notion of what it takes to flourish as human beings and our understanding of what we are obliged to do to help one another meet those needs.
Faculty participants include:
Christina Bosserman, Ph.D.
Teaching Assistant Professor
Theology
Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Thomas Durkin Ph.D.
Research and Grant Coordinator
Center for Peacemaking
Thomas Eddinger, Ph.D.
Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Biological Sciences
Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Sarah Feldner, Ph.D.
Dean
J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication
Melissa J. Ganz, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
English
Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Sam Harshner, MPA, MA, ABD
Center for Urban Research, Teaching & Outreach
Political Science
Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Nilanjan Lodh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Medical Laboratory Science
College of Health Sciences
Meghan Stroshine, Ph.D.
Chair and Associate Professor
Social and Cultural Sciences
Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Kathryn Wagner, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Economics
College of Business Administration
This exhibition is organized by Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Emilia Layden and Curator for Academic Engagement Lynne Shumow.
Image: Pelle Cass, American, b. 1954, Birds, Boston Public Garden, c. 2013, From the series Selected People, Parks, Archival inkjet print, 2014.4, Gift of the artist, Collection of the Haggerty Museum of Art, ÏòÈÕ¿ûÊÓƵ