St. Thomas Aquinas and Hagiography, January 18, 2019

Father Innocent Smith O.P. informs us of a session on St. Thomas and Hagiography he is organizing on January 18, 2019 at the Antonianum in Rome. He writes:

“In this session, we will consider the hagiographical sources and writings of Thomas Aquinas from the perspectives of systematic, historical, moral, and liturgical theology, considering his treatment of saints from the New Testament period as well as early Christian saints and martyrs. Through this panel, we hope to demonstrate the significance of Thomas Aquinas as hagiographer and to show the fruitfulness of multi-disciplinary inquiry into the treatment of saints by authors beyond the recognized canon of hagiographical writers.”

The contributors and topics treated are:

AUSTIN DOMINIC LITKE (Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Roma) St. Thomas Aquinas and the Vitae Patrum

INNOCENT SMITH (Universität Regensburg) St. Thomas Aquinas and the Early Christian Martyrs

JOHN BAPTIST KU (Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Washington) John the Baptist in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas

EZRA SULLIVAN (Pontificia Università S. Tommaso d’Aquino, Roma) Imperfect but Exemplary Saints: Paul and Mary Magdalene in the Theology of Aquinas

More information can be found here.

Symposium Thomisticum IV, Rome, July 4-6, 2019

Fran O’Rourke informs us of the fourth Symposium Thomisticum coming up this summer in Rome. I have copied and pasted below the complete information as provided by Dr. O’Rourke. Notice the call for papers. The deadline for abstracts is January 1 and the deadline for completed papers is June 1.

The fourth Symposium Thomisticum will take place in Rome, 4 – 6 July 2019.

Theme of the symposium will be ‘Aquinas Philosopher Theologian’.

The venue is the Collegio Irlandese, centrally located near the church of St John Lateran.

Details are available at www.ucd.ie/philosophy/symposiumthomisticum (google Symposium Thomisticum).

Speakers will include Serge-Thomas Bonino, Therese Cory, Kevin Flannery, Joshua Hochschild, Ed Houser, Gyula Klima, Patrick Masterson, Siobhan Nash-Marshall, John O’Callaghan, Paul O’Grady, Fran O’Rourke, Alice Ramos, Andrea Robiglio, Mary Catherine Sommers, Rudi Te Velde, Candace Vogler, Giovanni Ventimiglia, Kevin White. Other speakers to be confirmed.

Papers are invited for supplementary parallel sessions on the afternoon of Saturday 6 July. While topics on any aspect of Aquinas are welcome, priority will be given to those relating to philosophy and theology. To avoid overlap, initial proposals should be sent by email to Fran O’Rourke, Emeritus Professor, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin (orourke@ucd.ie).

The deadline for abstracts is 1 January, and for completed papers 1 June 2019.

Papers will be circulated in advance; summaries will be presented at the symposium: papers will be discusssed rather than read.

Participation fee will be €150 to include refreshments and the conference banquet. Reduced student registration: €125.

Accommodation: Rooms are available at the Collegio Irlandese, approx $100 for bed and breakfast. All rooms are air conditioned; there is a swimming pool in the spacious grounds.

All inquiries to Fran O’Rourke, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin (orourke@ucd.ie).

Aristotle's revenge! Feser's new book on philosophy of nature

Ed Feser announced a couple days ago on his blog that his new book Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science will be out early next year from Editiones Scholasticae. I’m looking forward to it and I’m sure many of our readers are too. For more info see his post.

New Journal for the Study of St. Thomas

The Thomas Institute in Utrecht has announced the launch of a new open access journal for the study of St. Thomas: The European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas (EJSTA). It is a joint initiative of  the Thomas Instituut Utrecht (NL), the Faculty of Theology of Nicolaus Copernicus University of Toruń (PL) and the Saint Thomas Aquinas Institute for Theology and Culture of the Faculty of Theology (ISTAC) of the University of Fribourg (CH).

Included is a call for contributions (deadline: February 1, 2019)

For more information, visit their website

Aquinas the Biblical Theologian Conference

Registration is now open for the 2019 Aquinas the Biblical Theologian conference at Ave Maria University (February 7-9, 2019), co-sponsored by The Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal and The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

Scott Hahn and Matthew Levering will be featured as keynote speakers. Featured Thomistic speakers include John Boyle, Randall Smith, Jörgen Vijgen, Michael Dauphinais, and Michael Waldstein. Members of The Sacra Doctrina Project will also present, including Steven Long, Taylor Patrick O’Neill, Daniel Lendman, Brandon L. Wanless, Sean Robertson, and Daniel Garland, Jr.

See the Ave Maria conferences website (below) for more information about the conference, including a tentative schedule of presentations.

Veritas & Amor Thomistic Contest

The Circolo San Tommaso is calling for submissions from individuals 35-years-old or less for their 2019 Veritas et Amor Contest, with two distict sections: Culture and Art.

No entry fees.

Deadline: February 15, 2019

> Culture Section

Open to degree or PhD theses and monographs focused on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, including (but not limited to) domains not strictly philosophical or theological (e.g. in human and social sciences: law, economics, political science, sociology, etc.) examined or first published not before 2015.

The topic is free.

The first-place winner of the Culture category shall receive a € 2,000 award and be offered an opportunity of presenting his/her thesis or monograph at Aquino.

> Art Section

Open to works in classical or contemporary art mediums (painting, plastic arts, performing arts, video art, etc.) focused on or inspired by the person, life or thought of Thomas Aquinas. For painting, the maximum size is 150 cm x 150 cm or 170 cm x 120 cm. For plastic works, the maximum size is 150 cm (height) and 1 m x 1 m (base).

The topic is free, but the suggested topic is: Thomas Aquinas, the eucharist, the incarnation.

The first-place winner of the Art category shall receive a € 2,000 award and be offered an opportunity of presenting or exhibiting his/her work at Aquino, Italy. The second-place and third-place winners of the Art category shall be offered an opportunity of presenting or exhibiting their works at Aquino, Italy.

The winners will be presented in Aquino, Italy on March 2, 2019.

Aquinas Manuscripts Now Online

The Vatican Library has digitized and publicly shared over 15,000 of its own manuscripts on its website: https://digi.vatlib.it

After a quick search for “Aquinas” this amateur researcher was able to spot manuscripts originating as early as the fifteenth century from St. Thomas’s commentaries on Aristotle, the Summa contra gentiles, De potentia Dei, De malo, the Scriptum, Quodlibeta, and the Summa theologiae, to name a few. Pages and pages of results turn up. Have fun exploring!

With thanks to Aleteia.org for originally sharing the story.

Call for Papers: "Identity and Tradition. Thomas Aquinas and the Church Fathers"

Please see the note below regarding the details and call for papers.

“We would like to draw your attention to the International Conference entitled: “Identity and Tradition. Thomas Aquinas and the Church Fathers” to be held April 4-6, 2019 in Torun, Poland. Our keynote speakers include Serge-Thomas Bonino O.P. (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome), Carmelo Conticello (CNRS-Paris), Dominic Legge O.P. (Dominican House of Studies, Washington D.C.), Enrique Alarcón (University of Navarra, Pamplona) and Paul van Geest (Tilburg University). The deadline for submitting a paper is December 1, 2018. For more information, please check the attached file or the website: www.biblicalthomism.umk.pl. Please feel free to distribute this to your colleagues and students who might be interested in joining us.”

From Jörgen Vijgen & Piotr Roszak

Thomas Instituut Jaarboeken online!

In case you didn’t know, all the Thomas Instituut Jaarboeken from 1981 to 2017 are now available online! You can download all of them as PDF files. This is really nice. For Jaarboeken 1981-2000 go here, and for Jaarboeken 2001-2017 go here.

Under New Management

Exciting news! After some discussions with Dr. Mark Johnson, the founder of Thomistica, the Aquinas Center of Ave Maria University has handed over the ownership and management of this website to the founders of the Sacra Doctrina Project, many of whom have contributed articles here in the past. Please feel free to peruse their website to learn about the founders, senior advisors, and affiliate members - in addition to their mission and initiatives. You may also follow the Project on Twitter (@sacradoctrina) and Facebook  (facebook.com/thesacradoctrinaproject).

Our esteemed contributors here at Thomistica will continue to post insightful articles and news pertaining to Thomistic scholarship, but the Sacra Doctrina Project will also endeavor to increase the frequency of posts, articles, and discussion, so stay tuned in the coming months; ite ad Thomisticam!"

Hiring in Philosophy at UST and Center for Thomistic Studies

Please notice the three job advertisements here:

https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=176813948&Title=Philosophy%20-%20Faculty%20Openings

Please note that all three are for permanent positions. They are not advertised on Jobs for Philosophers.

Thomas Aquinas at Kalamazoo

54th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan

9—12 May 2019

There will be a total of 6 sessions devoted to Medieval philosophical and theological thought, especially that of Aquinas, sponsored by:

The Center for Thomistic Studies, c/o S.J. Jensen, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas (TX), 3800 Montrose, Houston, TX  77006-4696. FAX: (713) 942-3464. email:  jensensj@stthom.edu . Three sessions will be devoted to any topic about the philosophy of Aquinas, his sources, or contemporary applications of his thought. 

The Thomas Aquinas Society, c/o John F. Boyle, Department of Catholic Studies, 55-S, University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105.  Fax: (651) 962-5710, email: jfboyle@stthomas.edu. For these three sessions, proposals on any topic dealing with Aquinas are welcome.

Papers are 20 minutes in length. 

Paper submissions must include a 300 word abstract and a completed Participant Information Form (attached)

Deadline for submissions: 15 Sep 2018.

The Kalamazoo conference is the largest congress for Medieval Studies in the world.  Cost of room and board is quite moderate, and the atmosphere congenial to those interested in Aquinas.