Christendom College: one-year position in Classics for 2006-2007

This is a tangential connection, but when it comes from Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas scholar, Steve Snyder, how could I refuse? Here is what he wrote:

Christendom College is advertising a one-year position in Classics for 2006-2007. The description of the position is attached. We would be very grateful if you would post the ad in your departments and call it to the attention of qualified individuals you might know. As you will see, we will do a national search for a full-time, continuing position the following year. For the 06-07 one-year position, an M.A. in Classics, or equivalent competency in Latin or Greek, is sufficient. Please emphasize to any you contact personally that enthusiastic agreement with the College’s mission statement (on the web) is a sine qua non in all Christendom hiring.

Thank you for your help. Christendom students are a delight to teach, and the faculty, administration, and chaplains are congenial and without exception mutually supportive.

Thanks once again for any help you are able to give!

Steve attached a file with the specifics of job-posting, which I’ve converted to a PDF file.

Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum seeks submissions

This just in, from Poland.

The journal, Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum, is seeking submissions for a forthcoming issue of the journal.

It is open for contributions in history of medieval philosophy, theology and science in English, French, German and Latin and editions of medieval texts of approximately 30 printed pages (ca 54000 signs). We will welcome papers on any topic concerning history of medieval philosophy, theology and science. The deadline is 30th September.

The contact person at the journal is Monika Michalowska, the Secretary of MPP, (monikamichalowska@o2.pl), and the journal’s address is:

Editor of Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum
Director of the Department of History Premodern Philosophy
Institute of Philosophy
University of Lódz
Ul. Kopcinskiego 16/18
90-232 Lódz
POLAND

Lectura romana bibliography: additions and new information

By way of Peter Kwasniewski, an addition to the fledgling bibliography I put together on the Lectura romana, as well as some additions:

• William B. Stevenson, "The Problem of Trinitarian Processions in Thomas’s Roman Commentary," The Thomist 64 (2000): 619-629—rats! I forgot about this article!

• Mario Coccia, “Credit Where Credit is Due: St. Thomas Aquinas versus Peter Lombard on the True Nature of Charity,”  Doctor Angelicus 5 (2005): 165–178.

• A translation, in English, is on its way out (eventually) that will include both the Paris and Roman versions of Book I, distinction 17.

Again, if you have some items to contribute on the topic of the Lectura romana, please don’t hesitate to contact me, so that I can put you in touch with others.

Conference: Jacques Maritain's Aesthetics and Modern Art

From Rajesh Heynickx in Belgium comes the following conference announcement:

Jacques Maritain’s Neo-Thomist Aesthetics and European Modernist Art Circles during the Interwar Period

International Conference, 12-13 May 2006
Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences of Belgium
Paleis der Academiën, Hertogstraat 1, 1000 Brussels

In recent literature on cultural history and art theory, modernist art of the first half of the twentieth century has not been viewed purely as a product of rationalism. That all too simplistic reading has been replaced by a dissection of the cultural, social and also religious background of modernist aesthetics. For modernist artists, a belief in instrumental reason, order and functionalism did not preclude the importance of myth, history and spirituality. Less well known is the fact that, besides esoteric mysticism or theosophical movements, a traditional religious frame of reference as Catholicism - often in a non-conformist version - appealed to the imagination. This is evident in the influence wielded by the French philosopher Jacques Maritain [1882-1973] on many European modernists. In the 1920s and 1930s, his cultural criticism [Antimodern, 1922, Religion et Culture, 1930] and certainly his reflections on aesthetics [Art et Scolastique, 1921] enjoyed wide interest in artistic and intellectual circles.

The Neo-Thomist philosophy promoted by Maritain, and specifically his philosophy of art, seems to have spoken to many modernist artists. The composer Igor Stravinsky consulted Maritain before formulating his theory of art and considered converting to Catholicism. The French poet, writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau did also that in the 1920s. For the painter Gino Severini, a pioneer of Futurism, and otto Van Rees, one of the first Dadaists - both converts - Maritain played the
role of spiritual counsellor. And when the promoter of abstract art Michel Seuphor embraced Catholic faith in the early 1930s he, too, had extensive contact with Maritain. For these artists, the dictum of the Irish modernist poet Brian Coffey, once a doctoral student under Maritain, applied: modern art needs a Thomist conceptual framework.

However, besides admiration, Maritain also provoked irritation with his theories. He was accused by some of being a charlatan who sought to appropriate the work of others, and for this reason surrounded himself with artists in his house in the Paris suburb of Meudon. Maritain, so the story went, was out to place modern art under the glass bell-jar of Catholicism. The fact that Maritain met with both praise and vilification speaks volumes. It reveals how the Catholic religion continued to be an important factor within the development of modern art. The protest and the adoration that arose around the figure of Maritain lays bare a crucial debate about the role of religion in modern art [and art
theory]. In order to arrive at an understanding of the main issues and the development of that debate, Maritain’s conceptions must be approached from a double perspective. This entails the analysis of the networks [friendships and his indirect aderents] that he developed through Europe, and of his criticisms [views of criticasters].

Maritain can function as a lense for examining, comparing and understanding a number of crucial dimensions of the aesthetic theories and religiously-inspired cultural criticism of European modernists. Research into the reception and the perception of Maritain not only tells us something about Maritain the person; an analysis of the many kinds of perception and reception which Maritain’s ideas met, can also shed light on the hybrid character of the modernism of the first half
of the twentieth century. To begin with, it can be shown that modernist art often depended on a metaphysical conception of beauty. In the second place, an insight can be gained into the fact that within modernism, a regressive utopia, based on neo- Thomism, was able to make its presence felt. Archaic, even reactionary elements such as an interest in the pious Middle Ages, were seen to be compatible with a belief in progress. An analysis of the reception and perception of Maritain therefore offers the opportunity to re-write the history of modern art and culture by relating it to aspects that are too often separated from it.

Programme

Friday 12 May 2006

09:00 Registration
1. Les grandes amitiés
Belgium: Wallonia [1], Flanders [2], beyond Flanders [3]

09:30 Welcome by Carlos Steel [K.U.Leuven] Introduction and programme outline
09:50 [1] Cécile Vanderpelen-Diagre [ULB] "Codifier la littérature?" Maritain and the Catholic Writers in French Speaking Belgium
10:30 [2] Jan De Maeyer [KADOC-K.U.Leuven] Towards a Modern Religious Art: the Limit Case of Albert Servaes
11:10 Break
11:40 [3] Rajesh Heynickx [K.U.Leuven] “Ma seule nostalgie de Paris”. Michel Seuphor in his mid-thirties: a missionary of Jacques Maritain
12:20 Discussion
13:00 Lunch

Afternoon:

France [4], England [5], The Netherlands [6]
02:30 Rajesh Heynickx [K.U.Leuven] Introduction and Programme outline
02:40 [4] Stephen Schloesser [Boston College, USA] “Ernest Psichari m’a précédé sur votre terre de Belgique”: Mystic Modernism as réparation
03:20 [5] Alex Davis [University College Cork, Ireland] Neo-Thomism and Modernist Poetry: the Case of Brian Coffey
04:00 Break
04:30 [6] Mathijs Sanders [Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands] Literature and the Cult of Youth: Pieter van der Meer de Walcheren
05:10 Discussion

Saturday 13 May 2006: Confrontations

09:00 Dirk De Geest [K.U.Leuven] Introduction and Programme outline
09:10 Carlos Steel [K.U.Leuven] The Thomistic Aesthetics of Jacques Maritain
09:50 Stephane Symons [K.U.Leuven] Artistic Theology: Walter Benjamin and Jacques Maritain
10:30 Break
11:00 Michael Einfalt [Universität Freiburg, Germany] Jacques Maritain, Ernst Robert Curtius and André Gide: Literary Autonomy and Cultural Criticism
11:40 Jason Harding [Âbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland] “The Just Impartiality of the Christian Philosopher”. Jacques Maritain and The Criterion
12:20 Discussion
12:50 Carlos Steel, Jan De Maeyer, Rajesh Heynickx General Conclusions and Debate

Practical information

Venue: Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences of Belgium, Paleis der Academiën, Hertogstraat 1, 1000 Brussel [beside the Royal Palace]

Dates: Friday 12 & Saturday 13 May 2006
Languages: Lectures will be given in English. No simultaneous interpreting is provided.
Proceedings: The proceedings of the conference will be published.
The Fee: Participating in the whole symposium costs EUR 25,- if you register before April 23, 2006. After that date the fee will be EUR 35,-. This includes the symposium brochure, lunch on Friday, coffee and light refreshments, but NOT housing.

Reduced student fee:
EUR 10,-. Fee per day
EUR 20,- on Friday
EUR 15,- on Saturday

Payment: Payment can be made on the spot in cash or with a credit card [Visa or Euro card].
Accomodation: For accommodation in Brussels, contact:
Grote Markt, 1000 Brussel
T + 32 [0]2 513 89 0 - F + 32 [0]2 513 83 20
E-mail : tourism@brusselsinternational.be or
mice@brusselsinternational.be
Website: www.brusselsinternational.be

More information: Magda Pluymers  T +32 16 32 35 11 - F +32 16 32 35 01

American Maritain Association: Conference 2006 call for papers

From Peter Pagan comes news of the posting of a call for papers for this year’s American Maritain Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee (November 2-5). The web page says:

The American Maritain Association invites proposals for papers to be delivered at its annual conference to be held in Nashville TN on Nov. 2-5 2006. Maritain considered Philosophy of Nature to play a vital role in the renewal of Thomism and modern culture. We wish to explore the problems surrounding the definition, methods, and applications of Philosophy of Nature, as set forth by Maritain in his books such as Science and Wisdom and Philosophy of Nature. Papers pertaining to these two works will be particularly welcomed. We also welcome papers exploring the work by others such as Yves R. Simon, Charles DeKonninck, William Wallace, and Stanley Jaki. Other possible paper topics include the relation of philosophy of nature to modern science, metaphysics, and theology; the relevance of philosophy of nature to contemporary issues such as evolution and intelligent design, ethics and natural law, sociobiology, and environmentalism.

The full text for the call for papers, and other particulars, is on the AMA’s web site.

Someday I'll see this painting in person

Take that, Averroes!A buddy of mine just returned from a conference he attended in Florence, and, a few days later, he received this picture from someone he met at the conference. I spent a whole semester in Florence in 1981 during my junior year in college, and never actually went into the Spanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella. It goes without saying that, now that I’ve devoted my academic life to studying Thomas, I won’t let that chance slip away again.

2nd Newsletter is posted!

With apologies for the many delays, I have posted the second "Tommaso d’Aquino Newsletter" here on the site. You can find it under the Newsletters navigation menu on the left, under March 2006. I wanted to get the files posted right away, but will still have to clean up the HTML code for posting that later tonight (or early tomorrow morning). So the on-line version of the Newsletter will be posted later (as will the downloadable HTML version). But the downloads are available right now.

Enjoy, comment, and correct.

Update on 2006-03-11 20:50 by Mark Johnson

The on-line version is now available. Thanks for your patience.

Update on 2006-03-11 21:14 by Mark Johnson

I have decided against creating and posting a downloadable HTML version of the Newsletter (even though I did do that last year, in the March 2005 Newsletter). It now seems to me that all serious word-processing programs can output HTML code from inputed Word DOCs, which already contain embedded graphics files, etc. Hand-tooling the HTML file, as its contents get richer and richer, is a real headache. Perhaps in the future I’ll see whether outputting text in XML format would be useful.

But as it is, the Newsletter remains downloadable in Word, Adobe Acrobat, and Microsoft Reader format. That should be enough for anybody.

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Bible: A Bibliography

Christopher Baglow has generously agreed to allow the downloading of his St. Thomas Aquinas and the Bible: A Bibliography which you can find in MS Word format here on the web site. Thanks, Chris.

Update on 2006-03-11 18:30 by Mark Johnson

My constant help, Jörgen Vijgen, just looked over the Baglow document, and added a few references of his own. You can download those added references, too (also in MS Word format).

Holding off the Newsletter for a day or two

I’m holding off on putting up the Newsletter and some other things because the hosting service for Thomistica.NET, Squarespace.com, will be doing some work over the next day or two that will result both in some service interruption and, importantly, some new features that I might make immediate use of. I so much wanted the romance of having everything ready to go on the original feast day of St. Thomas (March 7, the date of his death). I appreciate people’s patience, and promise to put things up the instant I feel things are ready.

Remembering Beatrice Zedler

Dr. Beatrice Zedler, professor emerita of philosophy at Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA), passed away Wednesday at the age of 89. Zedler received her bachelor of arts English summa cum laude with a minor in French in 1937 and her master of arts in philosophy in 1938, both from Marquette. She earned her Ph.D. in 1947 from Fordham University in New York.

Zedler taught a year at Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wis., and two years at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pa., before returning to Marquette as only the second woman ever hired to teach in the Department of Philosophy. Zedler retired in 1986 after almost four decades of distinguished service. Zedler was a 1981 recipient of the Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, the Association of Marquette University Women’s Chair in Humanistic Studies from 1967 to 1971, and a member of Alpha Sigma Nu.

Zedler is survived by three nephews, grandnieces, cousins and a grandnephew. Visitation will be held Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. with a funeral service at 11 at the Clement Manor Chapel, 3939 S. 92nd St. Interment at Forest Home Cemetery will be private. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Zedler’s name to the Marquette University Scholarship Fund.

The list of her publications—including her important translation of Thomas’s De unitate intellectus—check out the Marquette University’s library holdings for Zedler.

PIMS publishes Aquinas's Lectura romana

This is fantastic news. After 20 years and more in gestation, the Lectura romana of St Thomas—also known as (but wrongly) the "Alia lectura"—has been published. Fred Unwalla, of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies’s Publications Department, sent me this yesterday:

The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies is proud to announce the publication of a previously lost work of Thomas Aquinas: the Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, edited by † Leonard E. Boyle, OP and John F. Boyle.

Ptolomeo of Lucca, the friend, confessor, and biographer of Aquinas, uniquely reported that Thomas, while in Rome, had written a second commentary on Book I of Peter Lombard’s Liber sententiarum. The Lectura romana is that commentary. It is a reportatio of Aquinas’ lectures on Peter Lombard given in Rome in 1265–1266. An entirely new commentary, the Lectura romana contains a prolog, ninety-seven articles covering distinctions 1–17 and 23, and three short notes on distinctions 3 and 24. These lectures cover the nature of sacra doctrina, the names and attributes of God, the Trinity, and charity.

The Roman Province of the Order of Preachers had established a new studium at Rome in which Thomas would teach his fellow Dominicans beginning their theo­logical education. The Lectura romana constituted part of his teaching in this new studium. In this work, we have the only surviving reportatio of Thomas’ teaching other than biblical commentaries. Written with the trim precision of the Summa theologiae, the Lectura romana contains questions, arguments, and examples not found elsewhere in the works of Aquinas. Because it can be precisely dated to 1265–1266, it is also particularly promising for understanding the development of Aquinas’ thought on a number of central theological topics.

The Lectura romana survives in the margins and guard folia of a thirteenth-century manuscript of the Parisian Scriptum now in Lincoln College, Oxford.

Orders from within North America may be sent to the Department of Publications. Further information about ordering, a complete description, and an excerpt from the book, are available online at www.pims.ca. The book will be distributed in Europe by Brepols Publishers later this spring.

And when you do go to the PIMS web site, You’ll find a downloadable PDF file with the Preface and the contents of the Lectura romana. I plan to discuss this volume—and the larger topic of this Lectura—in my upcoming Newsletter. Fantastic news.

PS: While you are there at the PIMS web site, notice the publication in English of Raymond of Penyafort’s Summa on marriage, translated by Pierre J. Payer; at the end of that volume Payer has a table the assembles the parallels between Raymond’s account of marriage in his Summa and that of Aquinas in his Scriptum on the Sentences (which is the single fullest treatment available to us, as Thomas did not get to the treatise on marriage in the Tertia pars).