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APPLY HERE Professor Lewis Ayres and Fr. Andrew Summerson will lead a summer seminar of graduate students in a close reading of Gregory Nazianzen’s Theological Orations. A difficult character who for a time presided over the Council of Constantinople in 381, Gregory (c.330 – 390) was one of the most well-educated among fourth-century Christian thinkers. His five Theological Orations, delivered during his tenure in Constantinople between 379 and 381, are works of high art, as well as complex theology, and generated extensive commentary throughout later Byzantine history. The Orations are sometimes enigmatic, lacking the prolixity of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa’s...

APPLY HERE "Theology for Engineers and Scientists” aims to give graduate students with little or no background in Theology an introduction to the integration of Catholic theology with their respective fields of research or professional training. The goal is not comprehensive knowledge of an emerging field but the building of a bridge between disciplines that seem remote from one another and even in opposition. The theological part will be drawn principally from Romano Guardini’s The End of the Modern World and Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ because these texts look at the technocratic paradigm generously and critically with the goal of gathering wisdom from many domains of experience and learning for...

APPLY HERE Now in its tenth 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, The Parochial and Plain Sermons, and the Apologia Pro Vita Sua. This seminar will approach Newman’s thought through a critical engagement with these texts. LOCATION AND FORMAT The seminar will be held at Merton College, Oxford. Meals and lodging...

Photo Credit: Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service APPLY HERE 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 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 at Stanford...

APPLY HERE This seminar is an intensive week-long course in how to read, analyze, and discern the many themes in Augustine’s most ambitious and sprawling work. The City of God tells the history of two societies, and their respective origins, progress, and appointed ends. The story is engaged first from the evidence of profane history (I-XI) and then from the evidence of revelation (XII-XXII). In this seminar, participants will discuss how Augustine reckons with the crisis of the ancient and the human city, and whether it is possible to reconcile truth and authority across the competing domains of polity, religion,...

APPLY HERE Christianity, like other great spiritual traditions, is centrally concerned with the good life, with that “perfect peace” promised to those who trust in God (Isa. 26:3), or that “life abundant” which Christ came to offer (Jn. 10:10). Christian thinkers in every generation have reflected on the nature of human flourishing, the evils that threaten it, and the complex relationships among the temporal and eternal goods that comprise it. Until recently, by contrast, the younger social sciences tended to focus myopically on understanding and preventing human illness and suffering, seeking (in Freud’s words) to “turn hysterical misery into ordinary...