Integritas Seminar II

The Integritas program had its second seminar for the year on Thursday night on Catholic Social Teaching and integrating the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The readings for the seminar included excerpts from Rerum Novarum, the writings of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and Tracy Kidder's book on Paul Farmer's relief work in Haiti, Mountains Beyond Mountains. It was led by Prof. Margie Pfeil of the Theology Department, who is deeply involved in South Bend's Catholic Worker Community, where Integritas will be visiting over the coming weeks.

Prof. Pfeil urged the students to consider what we lose out on when we do not consider the gifts and talents of the marginalized, and that when the good of one person is diminished, then the whole common good suffers. She explained that both Pope Leo the Great's defense of the rights of laborers and the dignity of human work and and Dorothy Day's desire to treat every person she encountered with mercy and love spring from a philosophy of personalism. Giving an encounter with a person centrality creates a Catholic calculus that upends utilitarian measures of effectiveness or the common good. In Catholic Social Teaching, going back to Thomas Aquinas, common use of created goods is the primary value, and private property is secondary; from the earliest practice of the Church, whatever one has in excess of one's needs belongs to the poor and needy. It turns out that the Gospel is far more radical than Marxism.

She challenged students to re-imagine how the structures of society could look. Students debated the merits of having a "Christ room" in every home, to welcome those in need of shelter, rather than sending the homeless to institutional shelters. Students quickly pointed out that unless one knew those in need and had reason to trust them, such an invitation could easily leave one vulnerable to betrayal or violence. It became clear that to practice charity the way Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement envision it, one would have to work at building relationships with those to dwell on the margins of society, and leave the comfort zone of familiar places and regular routines to make space for people who do not fit into society that way. It quickly became evident that this work of practicing the corporal works of mercy involves a transformation of heart, allowing us to encounter everyone as Christ. What is demanded of us is not generosity, so much as charity: not opening our pocketbooks to a person so much as opening are hearts, and everything follows from that.

TONIGHT: Alasdair MacIntyre on the Summa

Saint Mary's College is pleased to announce the 2011 McMahon Aquinas Lecture:

"How Truth is Approached through Error: Rereading Aquinas's Project at Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 1 and 2" by Professor Alasdair MacIntyre

7:00 p.m., Wednesday September 28, 2011

O'Laughlin Auditorium (on the campus of Saint Mary's College)

A reception will follow Professor MacIntyre's lecture

Alasdair MacIntyre is The Rev. John A. O'Brien Senior Research Professor (emeritus) at the University of Notre Dame and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics at London Metropolitan University.

The Annual McMahon Aquinas Lecture

The Edna and George McMahon Aquinas Chair in Philosophy sponsors an annual lecture on a topic related to the thought of Thomas Aquinas.  Some of these topics deal directly with Thomas's own writings; others address questions or themes with which Thomas himself was occupied, but approach them from perspectives that are not necessarily Thomas's own (including contemporary perspectives and perspectives drawn from disciplines other than philosophy and theology); and still other topics draw inspiration from Thomas's quest to find truth concerning important matters wherever he could---especially using the resources of both faith and reason---while exploring issues Thomas himself never addressed (or perhaps even imagined).  Members of the public, as well as the Saint Mary's community, are cordially invited to attend these lectures.  And webcasts of past McMahon Aquinas Lectures are posted below in order make these lectures accessible to those who cannot attend in person.

TONIGHT: David O'Connor on Oscar Wilde

The fourth and final lecture in this year's Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholic Writers: Penning the Grandeur of God" is tonight at 8 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall Room #141. It features Philosophy Professor David O'Connor speaking on Oscar Wilde. We hope you will join us!

Integritas Fieldtrip to Chicago

Expanding on last week's theme of education as requiring the development of the imagination and the ability to see things from new perspectives, the Integritas program took a field trip to Chicago this weekend to explore life and art from many perspectives, to see the world in a new way, through the eyes of great artists, architects, and musicians.

The day began with an architectural boat tour of the Windy City down the Chicago River. Our tour guide put each building into its context, and the history of the development of Chicago's architecture also told the history of the city, from the Great Fire, to the old warehouses on the docks, to the early days of mail-order shipping of goods when Chicago was the hub for the developing midwest, right up to the present day of modern, post-modern, and art deco skyscrapers. The view from the river reveals welcoming pedestrian trails along the banks, public parks, and elevated outdoor dining areas; the city planners have carefully guarded public access to the banks of the Chicago River, to everyone's benefit.

Hungry after our morning on the boat, we feasted on a Chicago delicacy: deep dish pizza at Pizano's, and we were even able to catch part of the game against Pittsburgh before visiting Millennium Park. There, the perspective-bending reflective Bean sculpture became an object of fascination, worthy of the Surrealists whose paintings hang on the walls of the Art Institute, our next stop. The students had over two hours to explore the Institute, but that's never enough for the wealth of great art on display there. El Greco, Rubens, the Impressionists, and the European landscapes ranked among the groups' favorites, along with a special display of 20th century war propaganda on exhibit currently.

Before heading back to South Bend, we stopped off in Hyde Park for a free Jazz festival going on there. The main stage featured Rhythms of Thunder, three jazz percussionists who delivered a very impressive performance. It was a day of every moment crammed with beauty and newly perceived depth, framing ordinary scenes in new perspectives.

Loyola hosts Flannery O'Connor conference

Revelation and Convergence:
Flannery O'Connor Among the Philosophers and Theologians
October 6 - 8, 2011

Loyola University Chicago

Overview

This academic conference brings together Flannery O'Connor scholars and enthusiasts interested in the philosophical and theological influences that shaped her imagination.  Presentations will focus on particular thinkers upon whom O'Connor drew  directly or figures whose works help illuminate her artistic vision for readers today.
Conference events will include:

• Key addresses by leading scholars in literature, philosophy, and theology

• Multiple sessions of 20-minute presentation papers

• Documentary interviews with Flannery O'Connor's friends and associates, including clips of Sally Fitzgerald, Robert Giroux, Erik Langkjaer, and others, produced by director Christopher O'Hare

• Celebration of the Catholic Mass in remembrance of Flannery O'Connor

• Reading by William Sessions from his forthcoming biography of Flannery O'Connor

• Cocktail and dinner receptions

Sponsored, in part, by:

The Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage

Loyola University Chicago, Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Gary Anderson at University of St. Thomas

If you live in the Twin Cities, don't miss Notre Dame Theology Prof. Gary Anderson speaking at the University of St. Thomas at 7:30 p.m. Monday, September 26 at the O'Shaughnessy Educational Center on the St. Paul campus. His lecture will be on "Sin: A History." Prof. Anderson is one of Notre Dame's foremost Scripture scholars; his most recent book is published under the same title.

Religious Freedoms Panel

The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study is sponsoring:

Religious Freedoms Panel and Workshop Announcement

Religious freedom has been called the only constitutional principle of the United States. Recent popes have referred to it as the fundamental right from which all other rights derive. Yet accord among papacy, Presidency, and United Nations about the importance of religious freedom has not translated into agreement about what it means in theory or looks like in practice.

The panel discussion of “The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Freedoms” featuring Scott Appleby, Brad Gregory, and Atalia Omer will bring clarity to this topic by considering its historical, conceptual, and political dimensions. These panelists will discuss the promises and dangers that face the modern discourse of religious freedom in a global society where it can serve as both a mobilizing force for peace and a source of violent conflict.

The kickoff event for the graduate workshop on “Religious Freedoms, Modern Contexts” is scheduled for September 22 at 4:00 pm in McKenna Hall, Room 100-104. For more information on the workshop sponsored by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Mellon Foundation, please visit http://blogs.nd.edu/religiousfreedoms/.

All students, faculty, and public are invited. Refreshments will follow the event.

TONIGHT: David Solomon on The Ward Family

The third lecture in this year's Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholic Writers: Penning the Grandeur of God" is tonight at 8 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall Room #141. It features Center Director David Solomon speaking on five generations of the Ward Family, biographers of major Victorian figures. We hope you will join us!

Fall Conference Program Finalized

The full program for our Annual Fall Conference, "Radical Emancipation: Confronting the Challenge of Secularism," Nov. 10-12, is now available on our website here. Registration is open through the Notre Dame Conference Center; we encourage you to register early as space is limited.

Integritas Seminar I

The new group of Integritas students met this Thursday for their first seminar of the year in which they discussed the purpose of a liberal arts education at a Catholic university. They wrestled with the questions: Why a university education? and Why a Catholic education? through three texts: Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Stanley Hauerwas' article Go With God, and David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, This Is Water.

In reading Ex Corde, it became clear that John Paul II's view of the purpose of a liberal education is to encounter reality through many perspectives by interrogating questions via many disciplines within a university. Our approach to knowledge should be universal, taking in the whole of reality and considering every legitimate perspective. At the same time, it should be integrated, which means discerning which perspectives to privilege, what deserves the most weight, and what is the true meaning underlying the way reality discloses itself to us. For that, philosophy and theology are necessary. In explaining why philosophy and theology must be the integrating forces of a curriculum, one student used the example of studying engineering to explain that all the disciplines are meant to serve mankind (bridge-building is in the service of human civilization) but that theology stands back and asks what (Who) mankind is meant to serve.

That observation caused another student to worry that the conclusion of John Paul II's thinking must be that all students should be theology majors. We turned to Stanley Hauerwas to consider how all students can live their Christian vocations as students, no matter what they study, and how they can study all disciplines with a Christian perspective. You don't need to be a theologian to think about what you are studying in light of Christ.

David Foster Wallace warned against blind certainty, against living undisturbed and trapped in the solipsistic default perspective that you are the center of the universe. Like John Paul II, he challenged students to encounter reality through many different perspectives, and to learn what to pay attention to and how to construct meaning. Education is about learning how to think, and "learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliche about 'the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.'"

The seminar also offered students an opportunity to examine their own Notre Dame education against the ideals of John Paul II, Stanley Hauerwas, and David Foster Wallace. They expressed frustration that the core curriculum has almost completely eroded at Notre Dame, and the two philosophy and two theology courses required of all students do not have an integrating function; rather, they are treated like requirements to be gotten over with as quickly as possible. They identified the phenomenon of so many students double- and even triple- majoring, explaining that it comes from a desire to master a field but also integrate their knowledge with other fields. They criticized the College of Arts & Letters as having the least sense of curriculum of any college in the University: Business, Engineering, Architecture, Science, and Law all have a definite sense of what you should study to graduate with a degree in their field, but Arts & Letters has become fragmented and reduced to a matter of preference, so that Arts & Letters students feel that they have very little in common with other students in their college and even within their major. Ultimately, they recognized that there is no solution that will satisfy them for the brief four years they have at Notre Dame. They must make their educations the project of a lifetime, an ongoing quest to expand their imaginations to be able to enter into other perspectives and discern the truth in their experience of the world.

Press Release: 2011-2012 Fellows Announced

The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture

Announces Its 2011-2012 Visiting Fellows

            This summer the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture welcomed the two newest additions to its distinguished line of visiting fellows.  For this 2011-2012 academic year, Bradley Lewis, Associate Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and Associate Editor of The American Journal of Jurisprudence, will hold the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellowship, and Randall Smith, Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX, will hold the Myser Fellowship.

 Bradley Lewis, 2011-12 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow

            Sponsored by Mary Ann Remick of Rochester, Minnesota, a longtime friend and benefactor of the Center, this fellowship provides for a distinguished senior scholar to spend a year at Notre Dame pursuing full-time research and writing on issues related to the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition.

            This year’s Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow, Bradley Lewis, earned his PhD in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 1997. Prior to that, he had taught at Valparaiso University in the Department of Political Science before joining the faculty of Notre Dame for three years. He took up a teaching position in The Catholic University of America’s School of Philosophy in 1997, where he earned tenure in 2003 and where he currently teaches. He serves as an Associate Editor of The American Journal of Jurisprudence. His published work falls generally into the area of political philosophy, informed by his study of Plato and Aristotle.

            Professor Lewis has received a number of fellowships, including one from the John Templeton Foundation in 2001.

            During his time at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, Professor Lewis will be working on a project that aims to address how certain ideas at the heart of the Thomistic-Aristotelian view of politics, such as a conception of the common good, can be used to evaluate contemporary political institutions and practices. He wishes to address the question: “Does the common good have a determinate content and thus a clearer role as a kind of norm for political order and political conduct?”

Randall Smith, 2011-12 Myser Fellow

            Generously provided by the Myser Family Foundation, the Myser Fellowship aims to bring to the Center a scholar with manifest excellence in teaching, and at least one year of full-time teaching experience at a college or university.  Here he or she can engage in full-time research and writing on ethical issues related to the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition.

            This year’s Myser Fellow, Randall Smith, studied chemistry at Cornell College, where he converted to Catholicism and decided to undertake studies in theology. He earned his M.A. in theology from the University of Dallas, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. After beginning his university teaching career at Notre Dame, he moved to the University of St. Thomas.

            He has had numerous publications, ranging from journals as diverse as Sacred Architecture, Semiotics, Crisis, Nova et Vetera, and The Thomist, along with chapters in R.E. Houser’s forthcoming book series on the cardinal and theological virtues. His forthcoming book, Sovereignty, State, and Society: Catholic Political Theory and Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, has been accepted for publication by Catholic University of America Press. His popular publications include contributions to Touchstone, The Catholic Thing, and The Front Porch Republic.

            During Professor Smith’s year at the Center, he will work on two research projects: a book of classic texts in the Natural Law tradition from Sophocles to John Paul II, and a book on the relationship between the Old Law of Mosaic tradition and the Natural Law in the thought Thomas Aquinas.  

Ron Hansen on Gerard Manley Hopkins

Prof. Ron Hansen of Santa Clara University delivered a lecture on the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins last night to an audience of a hundred students, faculty, staff, and community members for the second installment of our Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholics: Penning the Grandeur of God." He spoke at length about the great friendship between Hopkins, who converted to Catholicism while a student at Oxford, became a Jesuit priest, and received little attention or praise for his poetry during his lifetime, and his best friend, Dr. Robert Bridges, a nominal Anglican who became a physician and highly acclaimed poet, even so far as to be named England's national poet laureate during the Victorian era. Prof. Hansen read from both Hopkins' and Bridges' poetry, explaining why Hopkins' has lasting value and has grown in popularity over time, while Bridges' has faded into obscurity.

Hopkins' poetry was misunderstood in his own age because of its novelty and inventiveness; his experimentation with rhythm and his concentration on religious themes came across as affected to his contemporaries. Throughout all of Hopkins' work, there runs a theme of praising and giving glory to God for the sacramentality of the world, which he experienced both sensually in creation and spiritually in prayer. Hopkins' poems paint not just the landscape of the world, but the "inscape," or the true identity of things that can be discovered only by looking carefully and paying close attention to the present moment. Hopkins is highly regarded now even by poets who do not value the theology deeply imbedded in poetry, because he invented sprung rhythm, or the device in which only stressed syllables are counted to compose the rhythm of a verse, rather than the total number of syllables, as in iambic pentameter or other more traditional rhythms.

Video of Prof. Hansen's wonderful lecture will be available soon; meanwhile, join us next week on Tuesday, Sept. 20 at 8 p.m. in DeBartolo 141 for David Solomon's presentation on the Ward Family as our Victorian Catholics series continues.

TONIGHT: Ron Hansen on G. M. Hopkins

The second lecture in this year's Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholic Writers: Penning the Grandeur of God" is tonight at 8 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall Room #141. It features Ron Hansen of Santa Clara  University speaking on Gerard Manley Hopkins. Prof. Hansen is a writer and holds the G. M. Hopkins chair at Santa Clara, so we hope you will join us! Video from last year's lecture is now available here.

Integritas opening Mass

The opening Mass for our Integritas program was celebrated last night by Fr. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C, on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady. Last year's participants returned to welcome the 21 new students, who come from every college in the University and span all four years, from freshmen to seniors. We are excited to begin the journey with our new students! We will have weekly updates about the program on this blog.

MacIntyre to give lecture at St. Mary's College

Saint Mary's College is pleased to announce the 2011 McMahon Aquinas Lecture:

"How Truth is Approached through Error: Rereading Aquinas's Project at Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 1 and 2" by Professor Alasdair MacIntyre

7:00 p.m., Wednesday September 28, 2011

O'Laughlin Auditorium (on the campus of Saint Mary's College)

A reception will follow Professor MacIntyre's lecture

Alasdair MacIntyre is The Rev. John A. O'Brien Senior Research Professor (emeritus) at the University of Notre Dame and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics at London Metropolitan University.

The Annual McMahon Aquinas Lecture

The Edna and George McMahon Aquinas Chair in Philosophy sponsors an annual lecture on a topic related to the thought of Thomas Aquinas.  Some of these topics deal directly with Thomas's own writings; others address questions or themes with which Thomas himself was occupied, but approach them from perspectives that are not necessarily Thomas's own (including contemporary perspectives and perspectives drawn from disciplines other than philosophy and theology); and still other topics draw inspiration from Thomas's quest to find truth concerning important matters wherever he could---especially using the resources of both faith and reason---while exploring issues Thomas himself never addressed (or perhaps even imagined).  Members of the public, as well as the Saint Mary's community, are cordially invited to attend these lectures.  And webcasts of past McMahon Aquinas Lectures are posted below in order make these lectures accessible to those who cannot attend in person.

Rev. Ker on Newman as Rhetorician

Rev. Ian Ker of Oxford University delivered the first lecture in our annual Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholic Writers: Penning the Grandeur of God," to an audience of over a hundred in DeBartolo Hall last night. His lecture received an enthusiastic response from a mixed audience of undergraduates, grad students, professed religious, and local lay Catholics.

Fr. Ker highlighted Newman's wit and beautiful Victorian prose in his lecture, pointing out that although Newman is noted for his novels and poems, his true greatness is to be read in his homilies, sermons, essays, and other prose. Fr. Ker shared some of his favorite passages with the audience, and he also gave suggestions of which works readers who are new to Newman should read. He discussed at some length Newman's understanding of the authority of the Church, and the dynamic tension between theologians and the Magisterium of the Church. He used an analogy of tennis, explaining that one can only have a tennis match if a court has been drawn, an official is present, and the players know the rules of the game. Those boundaries, such as the ones that the Magisterium sets, make the give-and-take of theological discourse possible. Authority must be respected, but so must the demands of intellectually rigorous theological engagement.

Video of the lecture should be available on our website soon, but until then, remember to join us next week for Ron Hansen's lecture on Gerard Manley Hopkins, who, Fr. Ker said, once visited Newman himself when Hopkins, a student at Oxford, was afraid that he would have to convert to Catholicism. Newman's response to the young Hopkins? "Well of course!"

TONIGHT: Rev. Ian Ker on John Henry Newman

The first lecture in this year's Catholic Culture Literature Series, "Victorian Catholic Writers: Penning the Grandeur of God" is tonight at 8 p.m. in DeBartolo Hall Room #141. It features Rev. Ian Ker of Oxford University speaking on John Henry Cardinal Newman. Fr. Ker is widely acknowledged as the world's authority on Newman, so we hope you will join us!