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Announcing a new Ethics/Religion and Society Lecture Series

Ethics/Religion and Society Lecture Series

Xavier University

2011-2014

“Justice, Tolerance, and Diversity”

 

The purpose of the lecture series is to debate the meanings of justice, tolerance and diversity as well as their relationship to each other.  How do different definitions of or approaches to justice affect the understandings of tolerance and diversity?  Likewise, how does one's understanding of diversity affect one's view of justice?  Which differences are most significant and which must be tolerated?

Please visit the Ethics/Religion and Society website as more speakers are added and dates are confirmed:  http://www.xavier.edu/ers/  To become part of the Ethics/Religion lecture series email updates, write:  frickman@xavier.edu

The public is welcome at all lectures, and all lectures are free.

2013 SPRING 

1.      Fred Evans: Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 7:00 pm in Conaton Learning Commons 412.  Dr. Evans is a professor of Philosophy and coordinator of the Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research at Duquesne University.   He received his BA and MA in philosophy from Indiana University and his PhD in philosophy from the State University of New York at StonyBrook.  He also has an MA in Psychology from the University of Regina in Canada and worked for an NGO in Laos during the 1970s.  Among his many publications are the following: The Multivoiced Body: Society and Communication in the Age of Diversity (Columbia University Press, 2008; paperback edition, 2011), Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty's Notion of the Flesh, eds. Fred Evans and Leonard Lawlor (State University of New York Press, 2000), Psychology and Nihilism: A Genealogical Critique of the Computational Model of Mind (State University of New York Press, 1993).  Prof. Evans will speak on diversity and postmodernism in a lecture titled, “The Dilemma of Diversity: Democracy, Justice and the Primacy of Voices.”
 

2.      Paul Gavrilyuk: Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 3:00 pm in the Conaton Board Room (second floor of Schmidt Hall).  Dr. Gavrilyuk is a professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas. He received a BS from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and an MTS and PhD (theology) from Southern Methodist University.  As an Eastern Orthodox historian and theologian, he offers courses in the history of Christian doctrine, Christianity in late antiquity, liturgical studies, and Russian religious thought. He has lectured in Italy, France, Belgium, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan; he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. His recent publications include two books: The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; paperback in 2006) and Histoire du catéchuménat dans l’église ancienne [A History of the Catechumenate in the Early Church]  (Paris: Cerf, 2007), which was originally published in Russian in 2001. His scholarly articles appeared in The Journal of Theological Studies, Scottish Journal of Theology, and Vigiliae Christianae, among others. Prof. Gavrilyuk will speak on Eastern Orthodoxy and diversity.
 

3.      Susannah Heschel: Monday, April 8th at 7:00 pm in the James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center.  Prof. Heschel teaches Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and has held visiting professorships at Princeton, Tufts, the University of Frankfurt, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Cape Town.  She writes on Jewish-Christian relations, the history of biblical scholarship, and the history of anti-Semitism.  Her award-winning publications include: The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton University Press, 2010), and Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (University of Chicago, 1998).

4.      Camille Paglia: Tuesday, April 16th, 2013 at 7:00 pm in the James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center.  Prof.  Paglia teaches at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.   She is a well known writer on sex, art and religion.  A co-founding contributor to Salon, she is also on the editorial board of Arion.  Her books include Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale University Press, 1990); Sex, Art, and American Culture (Vintage Books, 1992); Vamps & Tramps: New Essays (Vintage Books, 1994); Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems (Pantheon, 2005).  Most recently she is the author of Glittering Images:  A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars (Pantheon Books, 2012).

5.      Peter Huff: Tuesday, April 23rd at 7:00 pm in Conaton Learning Commons, 412 (Kennedy Auditorium).  Dr. Huff holds the Besl Chair, an endowed chair that is part of the Ethics/Religion and Society Program at Xavier University.  He is is currently on leave from Centenary College of Louisiana, where he holds the T. L. James chair in religious studies.  Prof. Huff studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Mercer University, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Indiana University; he received his Ph.D. in historical theology from Saint Louis University.  Prof. Huff has been a significant contributor to dialogue between Christians and Buddhists and between Christians and Mormons.  His books include Allen Tate and the Catholic Revival, What Are They Saying About Fundamentalisms?, Knowledge and Belief in America, Tradition and Pluralism, and most recently, two books on the Second Vatican Council: Vatican II: Its Impact on You (Liguori, 2011) and The Voice of Vatican II: Words for Our Church Today (Liguori, 2012).  He will speak on diversity and the Catholic Church: "Dignum et Justum: Justice, Diversity, and the Mystery of Catholicity." 

2013-3014

1.      Gayatri Spivak: September, 19, 2013.  Prof. Spivak is director of the Center for Comparative Literature at Columbia University.  She writes on postmodernism, feminism and Marxism, and her scholarship has been honored around the world.  Among her many publications are: Translation of and introduction to Derrida's Of Grammatology (Johns Hopkins Press, 1976); In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (Methuen, 1987); Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford University Press, 1988); Outside In the Teaching Machine (London: Routledge, 1993); The Spivak Reader (Routledge, 1996); A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Harvard University Press, 1999); Death of a Discipline (Columbia University Press, 2003).   She will speak on justice and diversity from the perspective of postmodern feminism.

2.      Kwame Anthony Appiah: October 3, 2013.   Prof. Appiah teaches philosophy and African-American studies at Princeton.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters; he is a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Democracy Fund and Chair of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies . Among his writings are: In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (Oxford University Press, 1992); Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (Princeton University Press,1996); Bu Me Bé: The Proverbs of the Akan with Peggy Appiah and Ivor Agyeman-Duah (The Center for Intellectual Renewal, 2002); Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2003); The Ethics of Identity (Princeton University Press, 2005); Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Norton, 2006); Experiments in Ethics. (Harvard University Press, forthcoming).  His lecture is titled, "Respecting Gay People: Justice and the Interpretation of Scriptures."        

3.     Mark Jordan: November 11th, 2013.  The Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Divinity in the Harvard School of Divinity, Prof. Jordan writes on sexual ethics. His publications include: The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (University of Chicago Press, 1997); The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism (University of Chicago Press, 200); The Ethics of Sex (Wiley-Blackwell, 2002); Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech (Beacon, 2004); Rewritten Theology: Aquinas after His Readers (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006); and Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

4.     Robert George: January 23rd at 7:00 pm; Conaton Board Room.  Prof. George teaches law at Princeton University.  He founded and directs the James Madison program at Princeton University.  He writes on law, politics and ethics.  He has been a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the President’s Council on Bioethics, the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court.  He has received the Presidential Citizens Medal and a Bradley Award for Civic and Intellectual Achievement.  His many publications include: Making Men Moral (Clarendon, 1995); Great Cases in Constitutional Law (Princeton University Press, 2000);  In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 2001); Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis (ISI, 2002); The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals (Spence, 2006); Body-Self Dualism (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Doubleday, 2008).  

 5.   Fr. Virgilio Elizondo: January 29, 2014.  Prof. Elizondo teaches pastoral and Hispanic theology at University of Notre Dame.  A leading authority on Latino religion in the United States, Fr. Elizondo is a recipient of the Quasten Medal, the Laetare Medal and the Pro Eccleisa et Pontifice Medal; he was named in 2000 by Time magazine as one of the leading spiritual innovators of the new century.  He has produced many television programs, and his publications include the following: The Treasure of Guadalupe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2005); A God of Incredible Surprises, Jesus of Galilee (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); San Fernando Cathedral: Soul of the City (Orbis, 1999); Mestizo Worship (Collegeville, 1998); Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation (Orbis, 1997). 

  6. Thomas Hibbs: date to be determined.  Prof. Hibbs taught at Boston College for 13 years and is currently Distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University, where he also directs the Great Texts Program and the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core.  His writings include: Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995); Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld (Spence Publications, 2000) Virtue's Splendor: Wisdom, Prudence, and the Human Good (Fordham University Press, 2001); Aquinas, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion: Metaphysics and Practice (Indiana University Press, 2007); Arts of Darkness: American Noir and the Quest for Redemption (Spence, 2008); and, in addition to scholarly articles, numerous popular book and film reviews. 
 

  7.  Stephen Long: date to be determined.  Dr. Long is a professor of systematic theology at Marquette University.  His doctorate is from Duke University. He is an ordained United Methodist and served in Honduras and North Carolina. He has published eight books:  Living the Discipline: United Methodist Theological Reflections on War, Civilization, and Holiness (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmanns, 1992), Tragedy, Tradition, Transformism: The Ethics of Paul Ramsey (Boulder, Oxford: Westview Press, 1993) Divine Economy: Theology and the Market (London and New York, Routledge, 2000) The Goodness of God: Theology, Church and Social Order, (Brazos Press, 2001) John Wesley’s Moral Theology: The Quest for God and Goodness (Kingswood, 2005), Calculated Futures, (Baylor, 2007), Theology and Culture (Cascade, 2007), Speaking of God: Theology, Truth and Language (Eerdmann, 2008). 

  8.  Fr. Thomas Guarino: date to be determined.  Prof. Guarino teaches at Seton Hall and writes on theology and postmodernism.  He is a Fellow of the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton and on the Board of The Center for Catholic and Evangelical Dialogue.  Among his writings are: Vattimo and Theology (T & T Clark International, 2009); Foundations of Systematic Theology (T & T Clark International, 2005); Revelation and Truth: Unity and Plurality in Contemporary Theology (University of Scranton).


PREVIOUS LECTURES

2011-12

  1. Remi Brague: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011; James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Brague teaches Arabic and religious philosophy at the University of Paris and the University of Munich. He is one of the foremost authorities on the diversity of influences in Western civilization, particularly with regard to the relation of Islamic, Jewish and Latin sources of European culture.  Among his works translated into English are: The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (University Of Chicago Press, 2011); Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization (St. Augustine Press, 2009); The Law of God: The Philosophical History of An Idea (University of Chicago Press, 2008); The Wisdom of the World: The Human Experience of the Universe in Western Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2004).   
     
  2. Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres: Sunday, September 25th, 2011; James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Guinier became the first woman of color tenured professor at the Harvard Law School.  When she was nominated by President Clinton to head the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, her writings on race, representative democracy and affirmative action became the subject of a fierce debate, and her writings continue to be at the forefront of political and legal discussions of justice and minority rights.  Among her many publications are The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy (The Free Press, 1994) and, with Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002).   Prof. Torres teaches law at the University of Texas.  He has written extensively on critical race theory and environmental ethics.  He has been president of the Association of American Law Schools, he has served in the Justice Department, and he has been recognized for his work on behalf of Latino legal rights.  The title of the lecture is: “Just Diversity: Why We Need a New Grammar of Race, Class and Power.”

  3. Russell Hittinger: Sunday, October 30th, 2011; James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Hittinger teaches at the Center for Law and Religion in the University of Tulsa.  He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Vatican City and he is on the editorial boards of The Review of Politics and The American Journal of Jurisprudence.  He writes on the relation between law and revelation, and his publications include Paper Wars: Catholic Social Doctrine and the Modern State (Yale University Press, forthcoming); The First Grace; Rediscovering Natural Law in a Post Christian Age (ISI, 2007); A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory (University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).  The title of Prof. Hittinger’s lecture is “Ordered Justice and the Diversity of Rights and Nations in Pacem in terris.”

  4. Jorge and Laura Garcia [two lectures]: January, 2012. Jorge Garcia is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and a fellow of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. He writes on ethics, medical ethics and race.  He is the author of The Heart of Racism: Essays on Diversity, Race, and Relativism (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming) and more than 80 articles. The title of his lecture is “Racism under Ethical Analysis: Indignity, Disrespect, & Injustice.” Laura Garcia, a scholar in residence at Boston College, has taught at Boston College, Calvin College, the University of Notre Dame, the University of St. Thomas, The Catholic University of America, Georgetown University and Rutgers.   She writes on natural theology, ethics and feminism.  The title of her lecture is “A Feminist Defense of Male/Female Complementarity." 

  5.  William Wagner: Tuesday, February 28th, 2012; James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Wagner teaches law at The Catholic University of America and directs the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion. He has been a Fulbright research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, and is the author of The Contractual Reallocation of Procreative Resources and Parental Rights: The Natural Endowment Critique (Dartmouth Press, 1995).   He will present two lectures, one on John Courtney Murray and the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Liberty and another on law and diversity. 

  6.  Waheed Hussain: Monday, March 12, 2012; The Schiff Family Conference Room in the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Hussain teaches legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of Business.  He writes on the intersection of morality and public life.  He will present two lectures, one on Islam and business and another more general discussion of Islam and modernity.  
     
  7. Terence Marshall: 30 August 2012; Conaton Learning Commons 412, 7:00 pm.   Prof. Marshall has taught at the University of Pennsylvania,  North Carolina State University , the University of Paris I (Sorbonne -Panthéon), l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, and the University of Paris X - Nanterre.  He is the author of A la recherche de l'humanite. Science, poesie ou raison pratique dans la philosophie politique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Strauss et James Madison (Press Universitaires de France, 2009), and he is one of the translators of the Collected Writings of Rousseau (Dartmouth, 1993).  Supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, he is currently writing a commentary on Rousseau’s Emile.  He will speak on justice and diversity from the perspective of Jean-Jacquse Rousseau; this year is the 300th anniversary of Rousseau’s birth. 
     
  8. Shawn Copeland: 9 October 2012; James and Caroline Duff Banquet Center at the Cintas Center, 7:00 pm.  Prof. Copeland is a professor of theology at Boston College.  She has been president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and holds honorary degrees from the Catholic Theological Union and the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; she has received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Black Religious Scholars Group.   She writes on theological anthropology and race and gender in the Catholic Church, and among her publications are: Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Fortress Press, 2010); Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience (Orbis Books, 2009); The Subversive Power of Love: The Vision of Henriette Delille (Paulist Press, 2009). 

  9. David Solomon: 15 November 2012; Conaton Learning Commons 412, 7:00 pm. Prof. Solomon teaches at the University of Notre Dame and is the founder and director of the Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.  He has been a National Endowment of Humanities Research Fellow at Oxford University, a Milbank Research Fellow at Boston University, and a University Research Fellow at Oxford University; he has lectured at more than 100 American and European colleges and universities.  He writes on ethics, and he is currently writing a monograph on the recent revival of virtue ethics and two volumes of collected materials from the annual Notre Dame Conference on Medical Ethics.  He will speak on the relation between justice and diversity from the perspective of the contemporary ethical debate over human dignity. 
     
  10. David Novak: 19 November 2012; Conaton Learning Commons 412, 7:00 pm.   Prof. Novak is Chair of Jewish Studies, a professor of Religion, and a professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.  He completed his undergraduate studies and an M.H.L. (Master of Hebrew Literature)  from the University of Chicago; his rabbinic diploma is from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America ,and his doctorate in philosophy is from Georgetown University . He is a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, a member of the Board of Consulting Scholars of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.  He delivered the Lancaster/Yarnton Lectures at Oxford University and was a Charles E. Test, M.D. Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Princeton University.   Prof.  Novak is the author fourteen books, including: In Defense of Religious Liberty (ISI Books. 2009), The Jewish Social Contract: A Essay in Political Theology (Princeton University Press, 2005), and Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005). His book, Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000) won the award of the American Academy of Religion for best book in constructive religious thought in 2000.  He has edited four books, and is the author of over 200 articles in scholarly and intellectual journals.  He will speak on the relation between justice and diversity from the perspective of Judaism.