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.