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The first Faculty Pub Night of the 2023-24 season features Brett Hoover, associate professor of practical theology (Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts). He will discuss his recent book, "Immigration and Faith: Cultural, Biblical, and Theological Narratives."

About Faculty Pub Night: 

Students, staff, faculty, alumni, and members of the public are all invited to the 2023-24 series of Faculty Pub Night at the William H. Hannon Library. Eight LMU professors are selected annually to discuss their latest publication or project in a comfortable setting and format that welcomes diverse perspectives for an inclusive conversation aimed to educate the entire community. All Faculty Pub Nights are free and open to the public.

About the Author's Work:

"Immigration and Faith: Cultural, Biblical, and Theological Narratives" is a work of integrative and interdisciplinary scholarship written as a response to the proliferation of disinformation about migration in recent years. It starts by acknowledging that migration is at root a common human story, but a story often misrepresented as a result of lapses in personal and historical memory—immigration amnesia and nostalgia. What also gets lost is the way in which migration is always a triad of experiences—a story of migrants, host societies, but also sending communities. The book proceeds on in three distinct sections. The first lays down sociological and historical foundations, surveying theory and data on why people migrate and what the processes of incorporation into a new community look like in actuality. The second section critically examines common cultural narratives about migration, including not only those in common circulation in U.S. receiving communities (e.g., narratives of threat, law, and a better life) but also those disseminating among migrant and sending communities. "Immigration and Faith" then focuses on religious approaches to migration, starting with how migration is described in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, with minor forays into perspectives on migration in Islam and Buddhism. The final section of the book surveys responses to migration in Christian social ethics and in Christian theology. How is migration a matter of faith? What is a proper ethical response in a host society? Finally, Hoover wraps up the book with integrative reflections toward a practical theology of migration.  

About the Author:

Brett C. Hoover is associate professor of practical theology.  From 2017 to 2023 he directed the Master of Arts programs in Theology and Pastoral Theology at LMU and taught graduate courses about practical theology method, ministry, religious disaffiliation, and faith and culture. He also teaches undergraduate courses on immigration, as well as ministry and leadership. He is the author of "The Shared Parish: Latinos, Anglos, and the Future of U.S. Catholicism" (New York: NYU Press, 2014) and co-editor of "Hispanic Ministry in the 21st Century: Urgent Matters" (Convivium Press, 2016). Hoover’s primary areas of research include parish life in racially and ethnically diverse contexts, immigration, cultural and racial diversity in ministry, and, more recently, religious disaffiliation and response to it by churches.

About the William H. Hannon Library:

The William H. Hannon Library fosters excellence in academic achievement through an array of distinctive services that enable learners to feed their curiosity, experience new worlds, develop their ideas, inform their decision-making, and inspire others. More information can be found at http://library.lmu.edu

For more information about this event, contact the Outreach and Engagement team at the William H. Hannon library via email at library.outreach@lmu.edu or call 310-338-5234.