The Vocation of the Patristic Theologian: Inheriting the Voice of Early Christians
This forum and reception, following the annual meeting of the North American Patristics Society, is co-sponsored by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. This forum invites graduate students and scholars of patristics to reflect on the nature of the craft and its relationship to contemporary theological studies, the academy, and church today. A panel of scholars, featuring John Cavadini, Lewis Ayres, Ellen Scully, and Bogdan Bucur, will speak on the nature of the vocation of the Patristic theologian and the challenges and opportunities one faces in research, scholarship, and teaching. We will further attend to the…
Synodality Series Session 1 | Synodality in the Ancient Church
Free and open to the public. This online symposium series is being organized by the American Cusanus Society, Nova Forum and the Lumen Christi Institute. Additional Cosponsors include Commonweal, America Media and the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought. About the Series | In light of Pope Francis’ call for global Catholic communities to enter into a two-year process on synodality, this six-part series will examine both the history of synods and the current dialogue around the future of synodality in the Church. This series is an opportunity to learn more about the topic in advance of the October 2023 Rome summit, “For a Synodal Church.” Pope Francis is inviting the…
Synodality in Perspective: Traditions Past and Present
This online symposium series is being organized by the American Cusanus Society, Nova Forum and the Lumen Christi Institute. Additional Cosponsors include Commonweal, America Media, St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought and the Collegium Institute. Participation and Registration | All are invited to participate. To attend, please register online. Registration links are provided by each session and date below. Each session will be a dialogue with a moderator hosting a conversation between two scholars. About the Series | In light of Pope Francis’ call for global Catholic communities to enter into a two-year process on synodality, this six-part series will examine both the history…
Aristotle’s Great-Souled Man in Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Saint Augustine
This event was co-sponsored by the Undergraduate Program in Religious Studies at the University of Chicago. Augustine famous referred to the classical virtues as “splendid vices”. Although he stood in the tradition that valued virtue, he was concerned that the pursuit of greatness through the life of virtue – a theme dating back to Aristotle’s ideal of the Great-Souled Man – could actually breed a sense of self-righteousness. Yet there is much to the Aristotelian ideal. The pursuit of greatness in the service of God seems preferable to complacent mediocrity that sadly characterizes so much of our life. This lecture,…
Winter 2023 Fundamental Questions Seminar: Sophocles’ Antigone
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Open to current undergraduate students at the University of Chicago. Registration is capped at 20. Students who register after capacity has been reached will be put on a waitlist. All registrants will be provided with a copy of the text. “For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, is full of misery.” Here is the paradigmatic tragic lament, wrenched from Antigone in Sophocles’ famous play. But what is tragedy? Is life miserable because it is meaningless? Or is the tragedy not that life has no value, but that it has too many values? What does one do when one’s…
Grief, Suffering, and “The Art of Dying” in a Plague: Cyprian’s De Mortalitate
Open to current graduate students and faculty. Advanced undergraduates and others interested in participating should contact dstrobach@lumenchristi.org. This event is in-person only. All registrants will receive copies of the selected readings, which should be read in advance of the class. Reception will follow. This event is made possible through the support of ‘In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide’ (Grant #62372) from the John Templeton Foundation. The ancient Stoics rejected grief as a passion. Was it inhuman to grieve? Or was it inhuman to suppress this natural human affect? What about longing for lost loved ones or the fear of death? …
Dante and a Poet’s Journey in Hope
REGISTER HERE This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact dstrobach@lumenchristi.org. A wine and cheese reception will follow. This event is cosponsored by the University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and the Medieval Studies Workshop. Often praised for its evocative treatment of heaven and hell, Dante’s Commedia is a significant work of theology. Denys Turner will explain how Dante accomplishes by means of poetry what the formal theological treatises of the Middle Ages demonstrate through prosaic inference and proof. Poetry, Turner argues, is the most natural language to articulate…
Can We Be Good on Our Own? A Symposium on Ancient and Modern Approaches to Virtue
Can we be good on our own, or do we need divine assistance? Four scholars explored this question in a symposium that was the highlight of LCI’s spring University Program Series. With Emily Austin (University of Chicago) moderating, Angela Knobel (University of Dallas), Candace Vogler (University of Chicago), and Daniel Lapsley (University of Notre Dame) reflected on the relationship between Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ moral frameworks from theological, philosophical, practical, and behavioral-scientific perspectives.
Synodality in Perspective: Traditions Past and Present | SEP 6 – OCT 25
This online symposium series is being organized by the American Cusanus Society, Nova Forum and the Lumen Christi Institute. Additional Cosponsors include Commonweal, Harvard Catholic Forum, America Media, the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought and the Collegium Institute. Participation and Registration | All are invited to participate. To attend, please register online. Registration links are provided by each session and date below. Each session will be a dialogue with a moderator hosting a conversation between two scholars. About the Series | In light of Pope Francis’ call for global Catholic communities to enter into a two-year process on synodality, this six-part series will examine both the history of synods and the current…