Myser lecturer Chittister explores role of public intellectual

During the Myser Lecture, Joan Chittister, OSB personified the advice she gives to budding public intellectuals, “Speak gently, speak lovingly and sometimes speak with humor.” Photo by Ashley de los Reyes '15.

During the Myser Lecture, Joan Chittister, OSB personified the advice she gives to budding public intellectuals, “Speak gently, speak lovingly and sometimes speak with humor.” Photo by Ashley de los Reyes '15.

The 2014 Myser Lecture

The clarion call from this year’s Myser lecturer, Joan Chittister, OSB was clear: Do something.

Provocative and passionate in conviction, with an audacious sense of humor, Sister Joan held a rapt audience at The O’Shaughnessy as she spoke on the topic "Going Forward with Hope and Courage: The Role of the Public Thinker in Church and Society."

Sister Joan opened the lecture by calling out the first line ż’s mission: to educate students to lead and influence.

“I am here precisely to talk about the leadership and influence in a society that is on the verge of bartering its future by simply abandoning the values of the past,” she stated.

To fight this, as a society we must encourage, embrace and engage public intellectuals in addressing our world’s most pressing problems.

In a world of talking points and canned news, Sister Joan said “public intellectuals are guardians of the marketplace of ideas.

But these public intellectuals don’t have to be others — we have the power, if motivated and willing, to count ourselves among their ranks.

“They are average people, these public intellectuals,” she explained. “They are people like you and like me who have questions and ask them, who discover issues and challenge them, who hear contradictions and confront them — who stand up and speak out until the cry is heard, the questions are faced and the issues engaged finally.”

Sister Joan outlined eight ways in which public intellectuals strengthen the quality and character of a just and democratic society:

  1. Public intellectuals bring transparency.
  2. “Public Intellectuals in a society that protects freedom of speech have the obligation to make the invisible visible,” says Sister Joan. Public intellectuals expose systemic corruption.
  3. Public intellectuals seek evolution rather than revolution.
  4. Public intellectuals bring hope.
  5. Pu