Conference on Preaching in Paris on April 7, 2011

In from Adriano Oliva, OP, over in Paris, comes news of a one-day conference on preaching from antiquity to the modern age, “Prédications de l’antiquité à l’époque moderne,” to be held on April 7, and sponsored by the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (PDF). This sounds like a great way to get ready for volume 44 of the Leonine Edition. Fr Oliva himself will speak on “Les Sermons de Thomas d’Aquin édités par le Père Louis Jacques Bataillon.”

Two Dominican-sponsored, Thomistic get-togethers in 2011

From Fr Thomas Joseph White, OP, comes news of two, upcoming get-togethers about Aquinas, both sponsored by the Dominicans. He provided PDF files for each: 

1. Thomistic Circles: A Theological Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Church: A Theo-Centric Ecclesiology, to be held in Washington, DC, April 29-30, 2011 (with Augustine DiNoia, OP, Fr Jonathan Robinson, Guy Mansini, OSB, Benoit-Dominique de La Soujeole, OP, Charles Morerod, OP) (PDF).
2. Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Philosophy, held by the The Catholic and Dominican Institute, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York, June 23-26, 2011 (with Charles Morerod, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Dr. Alfred J. Freddoso, Dr. Joshua Hochschild, Dr. Gyula Klima, Joseph Koterski, S.J., Dr. John O’Callaghan, Thomas Joseph White, O.P.) (PDF of poster and brochure).

It’s good to be on the East coast!

Program for an Ave Maria conference in honor of Ralph McInerny (update)

The kind people at Ave Maria University has passed along a conference program for the upcoming conference, “Philosophy in Theological Education,” to take place at Ave Maria University in early February. The conference is aptly dedicated to Ralph M. McInerny, whom we lost almost exactly a year ago. I wrote about this conference last year, but here is an updated program (in MS Word format).

American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting (November 5-7, 2010)

This year the ACPA meeting will be in Baltimore, hosted by Loyola University Maryland. The updated conference program is here. There are several sessions on the thought of Aquinas, along with the usual full slate of satellite sessions on a variety of topics. This year the Aquinas Medal will be awarded to Alasdair MacIntyre. The theme for the conference is “Philosophy and Language.” It promises to be an exciting weekend.

If you are looking for another reason to join the ACPA, here’s one: members now have electronic access to all issues the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (including The New Scholasticism), as well as all issues of the the ACPA Proceedings.

Colloquium in Oxford on Garrigou-Lagrange (November 27, 2010)

In from Francis Murphy in Oxford, news of a colloquium on Garrigou-Lagrange, to take place there on Saturday, November 27, 2010. Here’s a scrape:

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange and Some Disputed Questions in 20th Century Catholic Thought

Saturday 27 November 2010 10.00-17.00

Philosophical Adequacy: Garrigou-Lagrange on the Thought of Bergson and Blondel

Richard Peddicord OP Aquinas Institute of Theology, St Louis, Missouri

Garrigou-Lagrange after Chenu on the Nature of Theology: a Critical Disciple of his Disciple

Henry Donneaud OP Institut Catholique de Toulouse

Garrigou and de Lubac on Divine Revelation

Aidan Nichols OP Blackfriars, Cambridge

In the discussion session to follow, Philip Endean SJ (Campion Hall, Oxford), John Sullivan (Liverpool Hope University), and Thomas Crean OP (Holy Cross, Leicester) will also participate.

Find out more in the PDF file he provided me.

Conference on Philosophy in Theological Education honoring Ralph McInerny

The good people at Ave Maria University will be sponsoring a conference in February of 2011 (Feb. 10-12, 2011) honoring the late Ralph M. McInerny. The conference’s rationale and line-up is as follows:

A cornerstone of Catholic intellectual life is the teaching that the light of Catholic truth does not dim, let alone extinguish, the God-given light of reason. Faith in Jesus Christ heals, strengthens and elevates the light of reason. The excellent scholars at this Conference on Philosophy in Theological Education will explore how the love of wisdom and the intellectual life should inform the eduction of theologians. This is a theme dear to the heart and mind of the great philosopher and Catholic intellectual, Ralph McInerny. His labors for the renewal of Catholic intellectual culture will be fittingly honored and celebrated at the Conference.

• Fr Charles Morerod, OP (Keynote Speaker)
• Timothy Bellamah, OP
• John Boyle
• Romanus Cessario, OP
• Brian Daley, SJ
• Michael Dauphinais
• Lawrence Dewan, OP
• Gilles Emery, OP
• Kevin Flannery, SJ
• Marc Guerra
• Thomas S. Hibbs
• Reinhard Hütter
• Joseph Koterski, SJ
• Matthew L. Lamb
• Steven A. Long
• Guy Mansini, OSB
• John O’Callaghan
• Kevin White
• Thomas Joseph White, OP

Plus an encomium of Dr McInerny by Michael Novak (per the PDF).

You can download also download a PDF of the conference’s main features, download the conference’s program, or can download the registration form.

Call for papers on Aquinas at Kalamazoo

As they do every year, John Boyle and Ed Houser issue a call for papers for their sessions on Thomas Aquinas at Kalamazoo (see here for Michael Dougherty’s recent post on Kalamazoo, generally). Ed has provided all the details for your submission, chief among which are:

• Papers are 20 minutes in length.
• Deadline for 300 word abstract for presentation at Kalamazoo: 13 Sep 2010

He’s also provided a PDF with more information (here).

Call for Papers: International Congress on Medieval Studies

The general call for papers is out for the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI. This year’s conference will be held May 12-15, 2011. Planned sessions on Aquinas include:

• Know Thyself: Memory and Self-Knowledge in Augustine and Aquinas
• The Theological Methodologies of Thomas Aquinas and Other Scholastic Theologians
• Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Thomas Aquinas

Also of note are:

• The Philosophy and Theology of Nicolas of Cusa
• Robert Grosseteste and Natural Philosophy
• Robert Grosseteste and the Cura Pastoralis
• Nature and Word in Medieval Philosophy
• Natural Law and Moral Philosophy
• Natural Law and Political Philosophy

Another installment of the annual session How to Get Published: Advice from Editors and Insiders sponsored by La corónica is also planned. Past sessions have been wonderful and the advice offered is quite good.

Call for papers: Fordham conference on the Metaphysics of Aquinas (March 26-27, 2011)

From the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, a call for papers for their 31st Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies (Lincoln Center Campus, March 26-27, 2011), entitled “The Metaphysics of Aquinas and Its Modern Interpreters: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives.” Their description:

Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies invites scholars from different disciplines and scholarly methodologies to explore Aquinas’s metaphysics and how it relates to various aspects of his philosophy and theology and/or to modern retrievals of his thought.

The Conference seeks to capitalize on the pluralism of Thomistic studies by inviting papers from a wide range of areas within the disciplines of philosophy and theology. Conference organizers welcome papers that may approach the topic from various branches of philosophy (such as the philosophy of religion, ontology, or natural theology), or various fields of theology, such as historical, fundamental, or systematic theology (including such areas as Trinitarian theology, Christology, or theological anthropology). Conference organizers also seek a representative variety of approaches to Aquinas and to Thomism, including those of the Dominican commentators, Transcendental Thomism, Existential Thomism, analytic philosophy, and postmodernism. 

The Conference will include a special strand of sessions on what many regard as one of the central problems in the contemporary retrieval of Aquinas?s thought, namely, how to account for the mind?s knowledge of being qua being, or as this issue is often referred to, the discovery of the being of metaphysics.

If you are interested in speaking at this conference, please send a cover letter with contact information and an abstract of your paper to the Conference Committee at medievals@fordham.edu, or by regular mail to Fordham Center for Medieval Studies, Faculty Memorial Hall 405B, Bronx, New York 10458. The deadline for submissions is September 10, 2010.

Participants include:

Christopher Cullen, S.J
Brian Davies, O.P.
Lawrence Dewan, O.P.
Stephen Fields, S.J.
Paul Gondreau
Franklin T. Harkins
Gyula Klima
John Knasas
R. James Long
Steven Long
Giorgio Pini
Eleonore Stump
Rudi te Velde
Joseph Wawrykow
John Wippel

There is a PDF of the conference announcement here.

The UofT Colloquium in Mediaeval Philosophy 2010 (September 24-25 2010)

Here’s the line-up for this fall’s Colloquium on Mediaeval Philosophy at the University of Toronto:

Friday, September 24

Session I (4:30 - 6:30)
Chair:  Julie Allen (York University)
Speaker:  John Marenbon (Cambridge University): “Abelard’s Semantics”
Commentator:  Andrew Arlig (Brooklyn College) 

Saturday, September 25

Session II (10:00 - 12:00)
Chair:  Michael Barnwell (Niagara University)
Speaker:  Katherin Rogers (University of Delaware): “Anselm on the Ontological Status of Choice”
Commentator:  Scott MacDonald (Cornell University)

Session III (2:00 - 4:00)
Chair: Simona Vucu (University of Toronto)
Eduardo Záchia (University of Ottawa): “Thomistic Dualism and Compatibility Theory”
Ian Drummond (University of Toronto): “Duns Scotus on the Role of the Moral Virtues”
Sydney Penner (Cornell University): “Francisco Suárez on Intending an End”

Session IV (4:15 - 6:15)
Chair:  Jorge J.E. Gracia (University of Buffalo)
Speaker:  Mark Henninger (Georgetown University): “Realism and Anti-Realism on Relations”
Commentator:  Charles Bolyard (James Madison University)

For more information see the website.

Three happy words: Lawrence. Dewan. iTunes.

Here are three words that made my day: Lawrence. Dewan. iTunes.

The Dominicans are hard at work bringing the recorded contents of their recent conference in Warsaw to iTunes. As of this writing at least three are available. To make sure that I get it all I’ve simply subscribed to the entire podcast feed for the Dominican House of Studies - Priory (Washington, DC, USA). This morning I discovered that the presentation at the conference of my teacher and mentor from PIMS in Toronto, Lawrence Dewan, O.P., has been inserted into the podcast stream. His paper was entitled “Saint Thomas and Philosophia perennis.”

While you’re at the iTunes podcast section don’t forget to subscribe to the equally informative Lectures in Dominican History podcast stream, which contains lectures given by Fr. John Frederick Hinnebusch, O.P.

Dominicans gather in Poland for conference: "Dominicans and the Challenge of Thomism"

As we speak, an international conference is taking place at The Thomistic Institute in Warsaw (Poland), entitled “Dominicans and the Challenge of Thomism.”

On invitation of the Polish Province of the Dominican Order, some 80 Dominican Thomists are gathered there to “discover the depth and diversity of Thomistic inquiry in our Order today, particularly for younger scholars immersed in the thought of St. Thomas.”

Take a look at the website to discover the impressive program but also listen to some of the talks. From what we can gather in reading the program, we cannot but eagerly await the proceedings of what looks like the single most important event in recent years in the ongoing “renaissance of Thomism” (A. Nichols).