Showing the The Passing of Generations Video
Individualism, materialism, and accelerating social change have eroded the idea of continuity and obligation across generations. Many young people naturally recoil from the world they have inherited—a world made and unmade by their elders. Is intergenerational solidarity possible in the face of new common challenges including climate change and the AI revolution?
Paul Elie will engage these questions with student panelists Aina García Mestre, Carl Jambo (SFS'28), and Emma Vonder Haar (C'26).
Paul Elie is a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He is the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003) and Reinventing Bach: Music, Technology, and the Search for Transcendence (2012), both National Book Critics Circle Award finalists; The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s was published in May 2025. He also writes for the New York Times and its Book Review and Sunday magazine, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and Commonweal.
Aina García Mestre is an undergraduate student at Blanquerna-Universitat Ramon Llull and scholar in international relations with a strong academic focus on global governance, diplomacy, and the evolving dynamics of international institutions. She is a junior fellow at the Centre for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies. She has recently chaired a futures studies section in EISA PEC 2025 Paneuropean Conference and published in the Journal of Futures Studies. Fluent in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, and Chinese, García Mestre also brings professional experience as a translator and interpreter in multilateral and academic contexts.
Carl Jambo (SFS’28) is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University in Qatar aspiring to major in international economics to help bridge economic divides and drive sustainable development in Zimbabwe. He is an alumnus of the African Leadership Academy (ALA). Jambo has contributed to empowering youth across the African continent through his pursuits in chairing ALA’s Model African Union diplomacy conferences, hosting Build In A Box entrepreneurship camps in Zimbabwe, and working in business management consulting for youth-led small-to-medium enterprises under the African Leadership Consulting Group in South Africa. He is a GGD student fellow.
Emma Vonder Haar (C'26) is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences double-majoring in government and American studies with a minor in environmental studies. She has an interest in culture, public and social memory, and environmental justice; Emma is working on her American studies senior thesis focusing on the creation of "Southern" culture in Kentucky following the American Civil War. She is an incoming intern at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History with previous experience at the NewDEAL, Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, and Georgetown's Environmental Studies Program. She is a GGD student fellow.
