Featuring some recent talks on the arts and their relationship to the faith.

Faith and the Arts | Featured Tracks

Talks on Beauty

This lecture was delivered to the University of Kansas chapter on April 29, 2021. 

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Patrick Callahan is director of the Humanitas Institute and lecturer in philosophy at Wichita State University. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classical Philology. While his doctoral work focused on ancient Greek commentaries to the lyric poet Pindar, his recent work focuses on early Jesuit Latin texts.

"Only the Lover Sings": Augustine & the Radical Necessity of Poetry | Prof. Patrick Callahan

This talk was given on September 30, 2021 at the University of Kansas.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker: 
Brad S. Gregory is Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught since 2003, and where he is also the Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.  From 1996-2003 he taught at Stanford University, where he received early tenure in 2001.  He specializes in the history of Christianity in Europe during the Reformation era and on the long-term influence of the Reformation era on the modern world.  He has given invited lectures at many of the most prestigious universities in North America, as well as in England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Israel, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand.  Before teaching at Stanford, he earned his Ph.D. in history at Princeton University and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows; he also has two degrees in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.  His first book, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Harvard, 1999) received six book awards.  Professor Gregory was the recipient of two teaching awards at Stanford and has received three more at Notre Dame.  In 2005, he was named the inaugural winner of the first annual Hiett Prize in the Humanities, a $50,000 award from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture given to the outstanding midcareer humanities scholar in the United States.  His most recent book is entitled The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Belknap, 2012), which received two book awards.  His most recent book is entitled Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts that Continue to Shape Our World (Harper, 2017).

The Middle Ages: Dark or Golden Age? | Prof. Brad Gregory

Find the syllabus for this talk here: https://tinyurl.com/4bjua79p

This talk was given on October 16, 2021 at the University of Maryland.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org

About the speaker:
Michael Pakaluk received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard University, where he studied philosophical logic with W.V. Quine, Burton Dreben, and Warren Goldfarb, philosophy of science with Hilary Putnam, and political philosophy with John Rawls.  Rawls directed his dissertation, “Aristotle’s Theory of Friendship,” and Sarah Broadie (then at Yale) also served on the thesis committee.
 
Pakaluk counts as his main philosophical influences:  Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Reid, and John Henry Newman.  He encountered all four as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, where he wrote a thesis on Hume's Dialogues ("Hume's Naturalism and the Argument from Design"), became an expert in the main figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, and studied Aquinas and Newman under the guidance of the Dominican fathers there.
 
Pakaluk’s main work as a researcher has been in ancient philosophy, as he has authored many papers and three books concerned with Aristotelian ethics: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, books VIII and IX (Oxford); Aristotle’s Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge); and (with Giles Pearson) Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle (Oxford).  His work is typified by the drawing of philosophical consequences from careful attention to philological considerations.  His deeper concern is the recovery of a just appreciation of the classical outlook.
 
Pakaluk has held appointments of Associate Professor at Clark University in Massachusetts--where he also served in a long and distinguished tenure as the Director of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy--and as full Professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and at Ave Maria University. 
 
He has been Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Brown University and at Santa Croce (Rome), Visiting Scholar in Classics at Cambridge University, and Visiting Scholar in Public Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.  His blog, Dissoi Bloggoi, currently inactive, has been influential in classical philosophy.  His opinion pieces have appeared in First Things, Crisis, and the Boston Pilot.  The account of his conversion and life with his late wife, Ruth, is found in the best-selling book, The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God, published by Ignatius Press.
 
In 2011 he was appointed an Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
 
Pakaluk's avocations include golf, tennis, hiking, the french horn, espresso drinks and single malt scotch.  His skill in mixing cocktails has won him among friends the moniker, "Cardinal Martini."

Works (songs) cited:
Elgar, Edward. "The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38: Part I Prelude." Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/3aH3DrgQzjHKEozU1yErcO?si=3dc65ac1bb9b4597.

Elgar, Edward. "The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38: Part II Praise to the Holiest." Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/0mx3If8Bcar7tM0THf74e3?si=6f5c4fdfeb1f4879.

Poulenc, Francis. "Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites, FP159, Act 3 Tableau 4: "Salve Regina" (La Foule, Les Carmélites)." Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/1lTT4V5foT1Nvo6ebxgbzr?si=7f17cfa5c2424f36.

The Catholic Intellectual Renaissance of the 20th Century | Prof. Michael Pakaluk

This lecture was given on November 5, 2021 at Auburn University.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee. She received her Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. She has been active in her religious community's teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and has assisted with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper (L'Osservatore Romano), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Sister has served as editor-in-chief of her Congregation's book, Praying as a Family (also available in Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic versions). With EWTN, she directed a television series of the same title. She has also served as the creator and founding Director of the University of Dallas Studies in Catholic Faith & Culture Program.

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and the Project of Literature | Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel, O.P.

This lecture was given on March 9, 2022 at Washington and Lee University.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. 

About the speaker:
Kevin Hart is the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia where he also holds professorships in the Departments of English and French. His most recent scholarly books include Kingdoms of God (Indiana UP, 2014) and Poetry and Revelation (Bloomsbury, 2017). Among the books he has edited are Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings (Fordham UP, 2013) and The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas between Jews and Christians(Fordham UP, 2010). He is currently editing the fifth volume of a multivolume series The Bible and Literature, which will appear with Bloomsbury in 2020. His poetry is gathered in Wild Track: New and Selected Poems (Notre Dame UP, 2015) and Barefoot (Notre Dame UP, 2018). Among other honors, he holds an honorary doctoral degree in Philosophy from the Institut Catholique de Paris.

Poetry, Philosophy, and the Sacred: An Example from Gerard Manley Hopkins | Prof. Kevin Hart

This lecture was given on March 17, 2022 at the University of Maryland, College Park. 

The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4nh6uavk.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as well as Assistant Professor of English & Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classical Philology. While his doctoral work focused on ancient Greek commentaries to the lyric poet Pindar, his recent work focuses on early Jesuit Latin texts.

The Crass and the Sublime in Dante and Chaucer | Dr. Patrick Callahan

View Prof. Pezzini's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/342z96ec

This lecture was given on April 21, 2022 at The Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst as part of "Catholicism and the Arts: An Intellectual Retreat."

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Prof. Pezzini returned to Oxford in 2021, after five beautiful years in St Andrews (2016–2021). He studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (2003–2008) and the University of Oxford (D.Phil. 2012). He held research fellowships at Magdalen College Oxford (2013–2015) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2016). From 2010 to 2013 he worked as Assistant Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin.

Tolkien on the Nature and Purpose of Christian Art | Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini

This lecture was given on April 21, 2022 at The Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst as part of "Catholicism and the Arts: An Intellectual Retreat."

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Fr Uwe Michael Lang, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, is a priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London. He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford and teaches Church History at Mater Ecclesiae College, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and at Allen Hall Seminary, London. He is an Associate Staff Member at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, and on the Visiting Faculty of the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Illinois. He is the Editor of Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal.

From 2008 to 2012 he was a staff member of Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and from 2008 to 2013 he was a Consultor to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. In the academic year 2011/2012, he taught as Professore incaricato for history of Christian worship and hagiography at the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology in Rome

The Way of Beauty: Sacred Art and Architecture | Fr. Michael Lang

This lecture was given on April 21, 2022 at The Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst as part of "Catholicism and the Arts: An Intellectual Retreat."

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Dr George Corbett joined the School of Divinity in 2015. Previously, he held positions as Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy, Trinity College, and affiliated lecturer in Italian, University of Cambridge, where he also taught English literature and theology. He received his BA (double first), MPhil (distinction), and PhD (AHRC-funded) from the University of Cambridge. He has also studied in Pisa (as an Erasmus-Socrates exchange scholar at La Scuola Normale Superiore), Rome (Institutum Pontificium Alterioris Latinitatis), and Montella (Vivarium Novum). 

Dr Corbett directs CEPHAS (a Thomistic Centre for Philosophy and Scholastic Theology), TheoArtistry (a project linking up theologians and artists), and is leading on a new collaborative MLitt in Sacred Music.

Music in the Catholic Tradition | Dr. George Corbett

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Tolkien on the Nature and Purpose of Christian Art | Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini

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