Teaching The Teachers; Forming Friendships in Pursuit of Truth.
Intensive Coursework in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Since 2008, the Lumen Christi Institute’s summer seminar program has offered intensive coursework and formation in the Catholic intellectual tradition. The seminars are designed to convey in one week the equivalent of a semester-long course, so that students can use the intellectual formation over the tenure of their own academic careers as teachers and researchers once they become future faculty. Students who have passed through the Lumen Christi Institute’s summer seminar program currently teach at Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Dallas, and many other institutions.
Summer Seminars
Led by senior scholars, these seminars provide crucial fellowship opportunities, as well as the support that Catholic students at secular universities need in their pursuit of truth. In addition to engaging with texts from the Catholic intellectual tradition, the camaraderie that develops among the students makes a lasting impact on their professional and personal lives.
“The Lumen Christi Institute will host its second week-long seminar for recent PhDs interested in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In this seminar, participants will read, analyze, and discern continuities and discontinuities in Catholic social thought from the late 19th century to the present. Lectures, seminar reports, and discussion will focus on original sources (encyclicals and other magisterial documents), beginning with Rerum novarum (1892) and concluding with Caritas in veritate (2009) and Evangelii Gaudium (2013). This intensive course is multi-disciplinary, since this tradition of social thought overlaps several disciplines in the contemporary university including political science, political philosophy, law, economics, theology,…
Apply here Now in its ninth year, this seminar is designed as an introduction and immersion into Catholic social thought for graduate students and junior faculty in economics, finance, or related fields. Participants will cover foundational principles in Catholic social thought, starting with the human person, dignity, freedom, subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common good, and moving toward applications of these principles to conceptual understandings and ethical considerations involving economic topics such as utility theory, firm and business ethics, wages, markets, globalization, poverty, and development. Participants will delve into social encyclicals, secondary sources, and relevant economics texts. This seminar is sponsored…
Apply here National Institute of Newman Studies, Pittsburgh, PA Fr. Stephen Fields, SJ, Georgetown University Staff of the National Institute for Newman Studies Now in its twelfth year, this intensive seminar will examine the achievements of Saint John Henry Newman as a theologian, philosopher, educator, preacher, and writer. Remarkably, in each of these areas Newman produced works that have come to be recognized as classics: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, The Grammar of Assent, The Idea of a University, and the Apologia Pro Vita Sua. This seminar will approach Newman’s thought through a critical engagement with these…
Apply here The Thought of René Girard Description: One of the most influential 20th century Catholic thinkers, René Girard transformed our understanding of culture, religion, and human behavior. His “mimetic theory” builds on the demystifying power of the Old and New Testaments to illuminate the religious history of mankind. Through an intensive reading of his more accessible works, in conjunction with the fiction of the greatest writers, this five-day seminar for undergraduate students will explore Girard’s key insights into imitation, conflict, and scapegoating, connecting them to central themes of Christian theology. Location and Format: This seminar will be held…
Apply here The Mystery of Christ from Chalcedon to Maximus The seminar, to be held at the University of Toronto, will offer a contextual study of doctrine of the person of Jesus, beginning with the council of Chalcedon and culminating in Maximus the Confessor. This period is determinative for Christian thought on Christ for subsequent centuries and maps a complex interrelation between philosophy, politics, scriptural exegesis, and the accrued weight of prior Christian tradition. Students will be exposed to a wide range of texts and equipped to teach them effectively in the classroom. Lewis Ayres, Angelicum University/Durham University Paul Blowers,…
Apply here We are pleased to announce the inaugural summer seminar on Law in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, “Judgment in Rome: Art & Papal Teaching from John Paul II to Leo XIV.” During the seminar, participants will engage in seminar discussions on papal teachings (writings, speeches, etc.) from Pope St. John Paul II to Pope Leo XIV on the topics of law, justice, judgment, and related matters. Attendees will also encounter artistic works located throughout Rome that address the theme of judgment. Participants will be provided with a curated reader of papal teachings on seminar topics. One goal of the…
Apply here We are pleased to announce the sixth annual seminar on “Business and Catholic Social Thought: A Primer.” During the seminar, graduate students and faculty members in business schools will cover foundational principles in Catholic social thought and apply them to their own field of research and teaching. This seminar aims at widening epistemological preconceptions and showing practical implications of Catholic social thought for business in a way that affirms the goodness of business directed toward the common good. Participants will delve into social encyclicals, secondary sources, and relevant business texts that show the path for principled entrepreneurship in…
Apply here Glimpses of Wonder: Epiphanies of Beauty in the Midst of Technological Change Sister Damien Marie Savino, University of Notre Dame Peter J. Casarella, Duke University Eugene Wigner, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963, was not only a celebrated scientist but also defended the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in aesthetic terms. The beauty of the natural realm and the capacity of mathematical reason not only to measure the world but to see beyond its own finitude and look for a whole in the midst of parts is both mysterious and ubiquitous. In times of technological…