Peter King, superman

If you are looking to learn, just to learn, swing by the website of Professor Peter King at the University of Toronto. King’s website is loaded with a variety of fascinating articles, ranging from articles on Scotus (and editions of Scotus) to articles on Hobbes and the Beatles, and translations of medieval philosophical texts. More than that, almost all of these articles can be downloaded in PDF format, as King has produced the PDF files of his publications (even though they are found in journals and in books) through Emacs, TeX, and pdfTeX (ouch!).

I love it when others make learning easy for me…

Benedict Ashley on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Thomist moral theologians lament all the time that some of the deeply religious features of Aquinas’s doctrine are left out in the cold when discussions of his moral teaching take place, and that is surely true of his treatment of the gifts of the holy spirit.

While putzing around the Dominican Central web site, and looking up the page devoted to Benedict Ashley, OP, I came across this handy article on Thomas’s teaching regarding the gifts of the holy spirit. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting and helpful.

Abbey Library of St. Gall now online

This is soooo cool. When we took our paleography courses in Toronto one of the libraries to which constant reference was made was the famed library of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Now there is word that the same library is working on putting many of their precious manuscripts on-line. Currently, about 20 are viewable, via a well put-together site (existing in German, French, English, and Italian). The site boasts:

• high resolution of digital images
• entire manuscripts
• manuscript descriptions and many search options
• accessible in German, French, English and Italian

Click here to get a peek. You can read the Rule of St. Benedict in a splendid 9th century hand, or even a Bible from around 760 a.d.! A splendid site.

Hortulus: An On-Line Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies

Hortulus, is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, Web-based journal of medieval studies, founded and published annually by an international board of graduate students. It described itself thus:

Hortulus is a refereed journal devoted to the literatures and cultures of the medieval world. Electronically published once a year, its mission is to present a forum in which graduate students from around the globe may share their ideas.

In preparation of our second issue, we invite the submission of academic articles on the topic of Hybridity. The idea of hybridity is necessarily complex. Recent discussions have tended to address it in terms of identity and identity formation. However, it may be extended to consider many other areas. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Nationality and nationalism
• Culture, cultural motifs and cultural practices
• Religion and religious syncretism
• Language(s)
• The body
• Literary hybrid genres
• Identity
• Conversion
• Borrowed histories
• Gender play
• Translation

The journal also incorporates lighter fare such as interviews, opinion pieces, reviews and essays on diverse aspects of medievalia under the aegis of a section entitled Hortus Amoenus. We are particularly interested in reviews of historical novels and medieval-themed films, as well as reports on archaeological digs and museum exhibitions, but we are happy to receive any and all contributions relevant to medieval studies. Potential Hortus Amoenus authors should contact hortusamoenus@hortulus.net with a 250-word summary of their contribution before submitting a complete article.

For submission guidelines and more information, please read the Submission Guidelines and the Style Guide. Contributions should be sent electronically to: submit@hortulus.net. The deadline for submission is October 15, 2005.

All students currently pursuing graduate work in medieval studies or allied disciplines are eligible to submit papers and lighter contributions, as are alumni/ae of master?s and doctoral programs within one year of their graduation. Those who hold doctoral degrees are eligible only if not currently employed as professors.

Jacques Maritain Center at University of Notre Dame

This web site is obvious to those of us here in North America. The Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame is a storehouse of interesting links, including those that point to the Summer Thomistic Institutes that Ralph McInerny has sponsored over the years (with on-line and downloadable copies of fine papers), a recorded interview with Maritain from the 1940’s (MP3 files), and many, many other links (to dissertations directed by McInerny, River Forest [i.e., Dominicans in Chicago] archives, and more).

thomasinternational.org (a web site devoted to Aquinas)

It’s amazing what you’ll find when you hunt around websites that Ralph McInerny of Notre Dame has a role in. In looking through the website for the Jacques Maritain Center at Notre Dame, I discovered that there is an international web site on Thomas’s legal theory, which describes itself as follows:

Thomas International aims at reigniting the classical tradition of philosophy and theology – which is the cultural root of Western civilization – by promoting international scholarship focused especially (though not exclusively) on the thought of Thomas Aquinas. This commitment is not of merely historical interest, but is meant to promote engagement between classical thought and modern and contemporary thought, in all branches of human knowledge, in order to confront the perennial questions of the human heart and to seek solutions to the problems facing our society.

Thomas International is especially committed to promoting a new International University with the main campus in the United States, which will subsequently become the new center for its broad cultural enterprise.

Thomas International fulfills its mission through the joint activity of various Research Institutes, and through scientific collaboration with other universities and educational institutions.

There are also many links, especially to sites in Italy, that touch upon Aquinas.

Fabulous on-line list of medievalia

I just found a great on-line resource of medieval links (to journals, libraries, other websites, etc.). You’ll find it at:

http://www.ulb.ac.be/philo/urhm

which is run by the people at the Free University of Brussels (l’Université Libre de Bruxelles). It’s wonderful. The site also points to a consortium of other medievalist sites, and a portal for medievalists that is as thorough as I have yet seen.

Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics

I found this link a while back (as an offshoot from Gyula Klima’s fine personal web site), and simply forgot to post it:

The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics (S.M.L.M.) is a network of scholars founded with the aim of fostering collaboration and research based on the recognition that:

• recovering the profound metaphysical insights of medieval thinkers for our own philosophical thought is highly desirable, and, despite the vast conceptual changes in the intervening period, is still possible;
• but this recovery is only possible if we carefully reflect on the logical framework in which those insights were articulated, given the paradigmatic differences between medieval and modern logical theories.

The Society’s web site is designed to serve the purpose of keeping each other up-to-date on our current projects, sharing recent results, discussing scholarly questions, and organizing meetings.

A new blog about "Le manuscrit médiéval"

A sign that the end-times are upon us (): Jean Luc Deuffic, of pecia fame, now has a blog devoted to the medieval manuscript. Check it out here. Really, really neat. And packed with links to other resources in medieval textual production and paleography.

Tim Clark's search engine in English for the Summa theologiae

I’m getting this out now because I don’t want it to be completely upstaged by another announcment (more on that in a day or so). Tim Clark has put together a neat search engine in English of the Summa theologiae, which you can find here. The English text of the Summa is the one found on New Advent. A very nice job, and useful for one-off queries.

Web site devoted to Cornelio Fabro

(With thanks to Jörgen Vijgen). There is a very fine web site devoted to the memory and works of the great Thomist metaphysician, Cornelio Fabro. See the site at corneliofabro.org. An Opera omnia is underway, and will shortly include two of Fabro’s most influential works, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo san Tommaso d’Aquino, and Participation et causalité selon s. Thomas D’Aquin.

Therese Bonin posts English translation of Quodlibet IV.9.3

Therese Bonin (of THOMAS AQUINAS IN ENGLISH: A Bibliography fame) has posted a translation of Thomas’s Quodlibet IV.9.3 (the question on theological determination using authorities or reasons) on her web site. She says:

“I’ve updated my web page a wee bit and put myself among the translators — Quodlibet 4.9.3, brief but very interesting, is now at http://www.home.duq.edu/~bonin/qq493.html You may find it useful for teaching.”

Her site is a must-visit place for on-line resources and bibliography in English.