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The last few years have seen the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI), bearing potentially great benefits for the common good but also many dangers. AI applications are shaping society and individual life, leaving governments, businesses, and individuals struggling to address the effects of this powerful technology. This five-day seminar will explore how the Catholic intellectual tradition can help contemporary society develop an ethics for AI. Possible topics that will be addressed include: virtue ethics and AI-driven applications’ effects on character; arguments over the personhood of AI; the resources of Catholic Social Thought for confronting dangerous social effects of AI...

Apply here COLLIS Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture at Cornell University, the In Lumine Network, and the Lumen Christi Institute partner to organize "Faith on the Frontiers: Origins, Cosmos, and Extraterrestrial Life" a weeklong intensive summer seminar for undergraduates exploring questions at the frontiers of science and theology. Where do we come from? Are humans a unique form of life? Is there life beyond our planet, and what would that mean for us? In this weeklong intensive seminar at Cornell University, we will explore scientific, philosophical, and theological approaches to these questions in an attempt to forge a holistic perspective...

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 Univeristy. There will be two 2.5-hour sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and...

What is a good human life? What are the virtues and community types that enable us to live well?  This seminar will explore the nature of virtue and happiness by putting philosophical and theological perspectives on eudaimonia in dialogue with the empirical findings and theoretical frameworks of contemporary psychology, especially the field of positive psychology situated at Penn. Possible topics to be explored include: (1) eudaimonia and its relation to subjective well-being, (2) virtue in the context of community and social institutions, (3) the significance of religion and transcendence for human flourishing, (4) interdisciplinary perspectives on concepts like (a) freedom...

In this seminar, students 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, and history. LOCATION AND FORMAT The seminar will be held in Berkeley, CA. Most Meals (some on their own) and lodging will be provided for participants....