Open to current graduate students and faculty. Participants can come to whichever sessions they choose. Food, beverages, and readings will be provided.
One of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s very last projects was a treatise On Angels. He did not finish it, but the part that he did carry out is exceptionally brilliant, even by his standards. It is a work of theology, but the title under which it came to circulate reflects how philosophical it also is: On Separate Substances. With a more historical approach than that of either Summa on the subject, it addresses such topics the immateriality of angels, their origin, their knowledge, and the distinctions among them, including the distinction between the good ones and the bad ones. We will work through it at a leisurely pace.
SCHEDULE:
This group will meet bi-weekly on Thursdays (beginning January 23rd) from 6:00pm – 7:30pm over dinner. We will read 10 cantos before each meeting.
A copy of the text will be provided to all participants. The reading may be picked up at Gavin House (1220 E 58th street) during buisness hours at the start of the fall quarter.
The University of Chicago is famous for its graduate student reading groups, in which students pursue their own intellectual interests among friends in an informal setting. The Lumen Christi Institute supports this endeavor by sponsoring a number of graduate student reading groups each quarter. LCI provides space, hospitality, and books.
Reading groups cover the whole spectrum of ideas. Texts do not need to be explicitly Catholic, though we follow St. Paul’s injunction to attend to whatever is true, noble, right, admirable, and lovely (Phil 4:8). Groups follow LCI’s guiding principles, which…
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Affirm the intellectual life as good in itself
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Ask questions animated by the principle that “all knowledge forms one whole”
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Transcend the ideological / political divide (i.e., programs should not be partisan in nature)
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Welcome religious perspectives as part of the intellectual life (i.e., programs need not be theological in nature but conversations should be open to religious insights)
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Nurture friendships, to support the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness (i.e., programs should have a social component)
