Dorothy Day Lecture Series

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Wednesday, April 28, 2021  ::  7:00 p.m.

Sponsored by the Dorothy Day Lecture Committee

The 8th Annual Dorothy Day Lecture, established by the Class of 1971, is proud to sponsor Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty with speaker Patrick Radden Keefe, award-winning writer of Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. 

Speaker Patrick Radden Keefe, drawing on his masterpiece of narrative reporting, shares the secret history of the Sackler family, a philanthropic dynasty whose fortune was built on Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin—the highly-addictive prescription painkiller that helped launch the opioid crisis. In this virtual lecture, followed by a question-and-answer session, Keefe will discuss how the Sacklers' prominent donations to universities and art museums obscured the family's connection to a public health emergency, the multiple investigations of the family and their company by authorities in Massachusetts and other states, and the dangers of impunity for the super elite. Advance questions for Keefe are encouraged, please submit them with your registration.


Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of the New York Times bestseller Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; was selected as one of the ten best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal, and was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the decade by Entertainment Weekly. Keefe’s work has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change

This registration is now closed. If you would like to attend, please email alumni@emmanuel.edu.