Job Posting: University of St. Thomas (Houston, Texas)

This just in, from the University of St Thomas in Houston, Texas:

University of St. Thomas, Houston TX. Assistant professor, tenure-track, beginning August 2009. Five courses/year, undergraduate and graduate.  Usual committee work.  Ph.D. prior to appointment.  AOS: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas; candidate should understand and be committed to the philosophical vitality of the thought of Aquinas.  AOC: Metaphysics, or Philosophy of Law, or Social & Political Philosophy.  Record of excellent teaching and scholarly involvement appropriate to rank.  Competence in appropriate ancient and modern languages.  Send complete dossier to the Dean of Arts & Sciences:

asdean@stthom.edu
University of St. Thomas
3800 Montrose
Houston, TX 77006

Review of applications will begin December 8th and continue until the position is filled.  UST is a private institution committed to the liberal arts and to the religious, ethical, and intellectual tradition of Catholic higher education.  Applicant should address his/her knowledge of the Thomistic tradition and support of the mission of Catholic higher education.  Examples of how he/she has and will contribute to this mission should be included.  We encourage women and minorities to apply.  This position is contingent upon funding.  EOE.  www.stthom.edu  

It's nice to jobs coming open, even this late in the job season.

Update on 2008-11-20 00:56 by Mark Johnson

Note: updated at the request of the people at St. Thomas (Nov. 19, 2008)

Thomas O’Meara’s Thomistic Bibliography and translation on Albert

Scrounging around the "studies" section of the Dominican Central website (the website of the Central Province of the Dominican Order here in the United State [the Province of St. Albert the Great]), I was also reminded of Fr Thomas O'Meara's informative "Thomistic Bibliography," which was also printed in his book on Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas Theologian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). The Bibliography is a great help and a reminder of how much one has to do if one is committed to the study of Aquinas!

Don't miss Fr O'Meara's translation from the German of Rudolf Schieffer's "Albertus Magnus. Mendicancy and Theology in Conflict with Episcopacy." The story of Albert's resignation from the episcopacy of Regensburg is fascinating to me, in large part because it led him to be at the curia in Orvieto in the early 1260's, where Thomas himself was assigned at the time, thus spending up to six months with his former student (of about ten year previous). What I would do to know what the two talked about!

Weisheipl on the Thomistic Revival

It was my pleasure to visit for about five days with Fr Adriano Oliva, OP (Praeses, Leonine Commission), at the beginning of October, while he was here in the United States attending conferences at the University of Notre Dame and then at Marquette University here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We spoke about a million things, mostly concerning the work of the Commission. One of the neat things we did was to tape an interview here at Marquette, in Italian—I hope to post that on the site before the end of this semester. My first question to Fr Oliva was the general "hey-tell-me-about-the-Leonine-Commission-and-its-history" type question, which Fr Oliva answered with clarity. One thing struck me about the beginning of his answer, something I had known forever, but had forgotten—being reminded of it by Fr Oliva had the effect of putting the whole issue into new light for me. At the outset of his answer about the Leonine Commission's origins Fr Oliva mentioned Pope Leo XIII's Aeterni patris and the fact that Leo's intent was to publicize the philosophical teaching of St. Thomas.

Having studied Thomas for two-and-a-half decades now, in a somewhat "integrationist" fashion, I knew and appreciated the presence of philosophical teaching in Thomas's work—Fr Oliva's paper here at Marquette, as it happens, was on precisely that topic—but I've always somewhat chaffed at the bit when Thomas was termed "a philosopher"; Fr Oliva's reminder made me realize that "Thomas-the-philosopher" was at least part of Leo's immediate intention in the Thomistic revival.

I scurried to my offprints to find the article I had first read about the topic of the Thomistic revival, an offprint that my beloved James Weisheipl gave me when I got to Toronto in 1983. Re-reading it was informative, corrective, and heart-warming—it is always an emotional thing for me to re-read Fr Weisheipl's texts, since I can almost detect his spoken cadence as I read. The article, entitled "The Revival of Thomism: An Historical Survey," and dating from 1962, can happily also be found on the web, at the Dominican Central website, by following this link.

ETIENNE GILSON—Three Quests in Philosophy

News from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto that a book of some unpublished lectures from Etienne Gilson has been published. Fr Armand Maurer had been hard at work editing these lectures at the time of his death earlier this year, and Fr James Farge brought the project to completion. Here is some material that Fr Farge sent along:

Etienne Gilson was one of the most influential intellectuals and philosophers of the twentieth century. Some have credited him with expanding the spectrum of philosophical thought that had previously been limited by nineteenth-century analysts and positivists. Gilson devoted six decades to the study of the major philosophical figures of the Middle Ages. His interpretations of them are justly seen as new and insightful, and have exercised enormous influence on research in philosophy and on its presentation in the classroom. A “Gilson Society” has been active for years, and the Institut catholique in Paris has created a Gilson Chair in Metaphysics. A French publisher has announced a multi-volume publication of his complete works.

These seven previously unpublished lectures – Gilson termed them “Quests” – represent his mature thought on three key philosophical questions: the nature of philosophy, “species,” and “matter.” These are issues of perennial and pertinent interest to both philosophers and scientists. Gilson presents them here with his characteristic clarity, sense, and humour.

More about the book, including order forms, can be found on the PIMS website.

Can you make a small donation?

I couldn’t bear to include a request for donations in the mailing I sent out earlier today, but am compelled to make this request to our visitors nonetheless, so here goes.

Thomistica.net is a labor of love, but it’s a labor of love that costs money to produce (web hosting costs over the past four years have totaled $850.00—Squarespace is the best, and workers are worth their wages). Although the single most important contribution visitors can make is providing information to the site, to be dispersed to others via the site, it is also possible to help the site financially. You can make an outright contribution via PayPal (click here, or on the button below), or you can have a little fun and purchase items from Amazon.com that are linked to on the site. Or you might find some trinkets of interest on our on-line store at CafePress.com (c’mon, you really do need a new mousepad. Have you looked at yours lately?).

In any case, I’d grateful for any support you can provide. Even a few visitors tossing in a donation of $15.00 dollars could help fund the hosting costs for half a year.

Thanks to everyone for visiting, and for their support.

Change is coming to thomistica.net

I just sent out a note to all who have been on the site's mailing list, explaining why I am ending the practice of using a mailing list (why? RSS). I also mentioned that I will be working away on a number of changes over the weekend:

For four years Thomistica.net has been hosted on the wonderful Squarespace publishing system, which has recently been upgraded to version 5 of the system's web-software. This new version allows me the opportunity to introduce some important changes, including a 3-column layout, new look-and-feel, reorganization, updated wallpapers, and some added features (a forum, perhaps?). In addition, there are some stories that I've wanted to get posted, including a report on the marvelous new annual bibliography, entitled Thomistica (note: not related to thomistica.net), Maria Berger's important discovery in Cologne, plus other updates. If you visit the site regularly—we get over 150 unique visitors daily—you'll see changes over the next week or so.

Aquinas conference at Pázmány Péter Catholic University (Hungary)

This in, from Kál Bulcsú Hoppál, a PhD student at the International Academy of Philosophy, Pontificia Universidad Catolica, in Chile, regarding a conference in Hungary from March 6-7, 2009. The conference is entitled "Thomas Aquinas and Thomism of Today—Tradition, Interpretation and Perspectives." Here is some more information, stripped from the conference flyer (PDF):

Contributions <were> invited from philosophers, theologians, religious scholars, medievalists, linguists, sociologists, psychologists, and other interested scholars on the following and related topics:

• Thomas Aquinas' philosophy and theology and its medieval interpretation
• Thomas Aquinas and Thomisms
• Scholastic and Thomist traditions
• Thomism and interreligious dialogue
• Thomism in modern philosophy
• Thomist schools in the 20th century
• In the footsteps of Thomas Aquinas: issues of ethics, metaphysics and epistemology today
• In the footsteps of Thomas Aquinas: issues of language and communication

The conference is organized by the Hungarian Thomas Aquinas Society (member of the S.I.T.A., Societá Internazionale Tommaso d'Aquino) and the Institute of Philosophy of the P.P. Catholic University, and is acknowledged as an official conference of the S.I.T.A. (http://www.hungariansita.org).

Alasdair MacIntyre 80th birthday conference in Dublin

By way of Fran O'Rourke (School of Philosophy, University College, Dublin):

A conference to honour Alasdair MacIntyre on his 80th birthday will take place at University College Dublin, 6-8 March 2009. Theme of the conference will be "What happened in and to moral philosophy in the twentieth century?".

Alasdair MacIntyre will deliver an autobiographical paper, "On having survived the moral philosophies of the twentieth century". A number of scholarships (air travel, registration, hotel) are available for postgraduates.

Details at http://www.ucd.ie/philosophy/macintyre

Website: Electronic Resources for Medieval Philosophy

Thanks to Jean-Luc Solère (at Boston College) for informing me of the fantastic sub-site of the SIEPM's larger site (Société Internationale pour l'Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale), one devoted to providing on-line access to a range of medieval philosophy sources. See his Electronic Resources for Medieval Philosophy website (now also listed on the "links" section here at Thomistica.net). The site points to manuscript resources, edited texts, bibliographies, and other sites. Certainly to be book-marked.

Reading Romans with St. Thomas Aquinas (February 5-7, 2009)

The good people at the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University are at it again. Every other year they put on a conference devoted directly to theological themes in Aquinas, while in the interceding year they have a conference on some feature of Catholic doctrine and practice. This year they are holding a conference on Aquinas's commentary on the Letter to the Romans, from February 5-7, 2009 (need the text of Thomas's commentary on Romans? Click here). The conference, entitled "Reading Romans with St. Thomas Aquinas: Ecumenical Explorations," brings together the following ecumenical cast of speakers:

• Bernhard Blankenhorn, OP
• Markus Bockmuehl
• Hans Boersma
• John Boyle
• Edgardo Colon-Emeric
• Holly Taylor Coolman
• Adam Cooper
• Scott Hahn
• Mary Healy
• Paul Keller, OP
• Matthew L. Lamb
• Matthew Levering
• Bruce Marshall
• Emmanuel Perrier, OP
• Charles Raith
• Patrick Henry Reardon
• Michael Root
• Michael Sherwin, OP
• Gregory Vall
• Geoffrey Wainwright
• Michael Waldstein
• Robert Louis Wilken
• David S. Yeago

You can download the general conference flyer (PDF), and the conference registration (PDF). Register early, they say, because space is limited.

On a personal note, I have gone to all the Aquinas-specific conferences save the first, and have found them all to be profoundly informative. In a time when both travel budgets and time are tight, this is my only "can't miss" conference every year, topping even Kalamazoo. And the new digs at Ave Maria University form a lovely conference space—especially in early February!

Kalamazoo 2009 call-for-papers on Aquinas

In from Ed Houser (University of St. Thomas in Houston) and John F. Boyle (University of St. Thomas in St. Paul), a call-for-papers on Aquinas for Kalamazoo 2009 (May 7-10, 2009). The focus in previous years has been upon the seven virtues—with the possibility of eventual publication of papers in a series of volumes from CUA Press. This year's focus is upon the virtue of hope. Paper proposals are due by September 14, 2008, but, as Ed notes, "if past is any indication, we will run out of places well before then." You can download a flyer for the proposal in Word or PDF format.

Ed adds that "the first volume in the series, on temperance, is now being proof read for one last time before sending the manuscript to Catholic University Press."

2008 Conway Lectures at Notre Dame (September 18, 23, and 25)

This in from Roberta Baranowski (Asst. Director, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame): The Medieval Institute will host Jonathan Riley-Smith, the distinguished historian of the Crusades, who will give three lectures on the subject of “The Templars and the Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land, 1120-1291.” The three segments are entitled: “Ethos,” “Community,” and “Governance.”

Each lecture will take place at 5 p.m. at the Eck Visitors Center on the Notre Dame campus. All are free and open to the public. You are warmly welcome to attend.

If further information is needed, contact her by e-mail (rbaranow@nd.edu) or phone (574-631-8304).