REGISTER BELOW
Dinner | Discussion
This event is designated for University of Chicago graduate students. Other students interested in attending should contact William Hurley at whurley@lumenchristi.org.
Randy Boyagoda’s much-anticipated new novel, Lords of Serendipity, arrives at a moment when universities are facing profound questions about their purpose, value, and future. By bringing together American and international students, professors, teaching assistants, administrators, and parents, Boyagoda allows us to see the university from many sides at once. Moving across countries and social worlds, the novel presents the university not simply as a place of learning, but as an entire system—a business, a status symbol, a path to migration and social mobility, and, for families around the world, an object of extraordinary hope.
Over four weekly sessions, we will use the novel as a shared lens for thinking about contemporary higher education and sharing our own experiences. What happens when we ask the university to fulfill so many different hopes at once? What happens when education becomes entangled with prestige, debt, ambition, politics, and institutional survival? And amid all these competing demands, what makes genuine learning possible—and what might a university ultimately be for?
Books can be picked up any time during business hours at Gavin House.
Calendar
- Oct. 14, Week 1 – Part One
- Oct. 21, Week 2 – Part Two
- Oct. 28, Week 3 – Part Three
- Nov. 4, Week 4 – Part Four
About Graduate Student Reading Groups
Each quarter, the Lumen Christi Institute hosts a number of student-led reading groups at Gavin House (1220 E 58th St.). The reading groups are usually held over a shared meal and all participants are provided a copy of the text. Any graduate student interested in a shared reading of a great text is welcome to join. No religious affiliation is necessary.