The Thomistic Institute

Nov 25, 2024 • 44 min

Professor Michael Dickson examines the relationship between beauty and music, tracing the development of aesthetic theories from ancient Greek philosophers to modern thinkers. He critiques modernist approaches that dismiss beauty in art and architecture and advocates for a return to the "great theory of beauty" which emphasizes proportion, clarity, and integrity. This lecture was given on February 20th, 2024, at University of South Carolina. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Professor Michael Dickson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. His research interests are in the philosophy of music, philosophy of psychiatry, and medieval philosophy. He has also worked in the philosophy of physics, especially quantum theory. He is the author of Quantum Chance and Nonlocality (1998).

Nov 20, 2024 • 50 min

This lecture was given on March 13th, 2024, at New York University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Nathaniel Peters is the Director of the Morningside Institute. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in linguistics, with a focus on French and Latin, his M.T.S. from the University of Notre Dame, and his Ph.D. in theology from Boston College. He has published articles and reviews on many topics in historical theology and ethics and serves as a contributing editor at Public Discourse.

Nov 18, 2024 • 49 min

This lecture was given on December 15th, 2023, at The Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Fr. Thomas Joseph White is the Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome. Originally a native of southeastern Georgia in the US, Fr. White studied at Brown University, where he converted to Catholicism. He did his doctoral studies in theology at Oxford University, and is the author of various books and articles including Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (Sapientia Press, 2011), The Incarnate Lord, A Thomistic Study in Christology (The Catholic University of America Press, 2015) Exodus (Brazos Press, 2016), The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism (Catholic University Press, 2017), and The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God (Catholic University Press, 2022). He is co-editor of the journal Nova et Vetera , a Distinguished Scholar of the McDonald Agape Foundation, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. 

Nov 15, 2024 • 39 min

This lecture was given on June 10th, 2024, at the Catholic University of America. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is professor of patristics and ancient languages at the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies where he serves as the director of the doctoral program. He authored Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh (Catholic University of America, 2023). He co-authored A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Vocations, 2019). Editor-in-chief of the academic journal The Thomist , Hofer is editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Deification, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons , and Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers . He enjoys speaking with students about their theological and spiritual questions.

Nov 14, 2024 • 57 min

This lecture was given on September 15th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Stephen Meredith (University of Chicago) is a professor of Pathology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Neurology. He is also an associate faculty member in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He has published more than 100 journal articles, focusing on the biophysics of protein structure. Much of his work has been the application of solution and solid-state NMR to the study of amyloid proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. His teaching includes courses to graduate students in biochemistry and biophysics, medical students, and undergraduates and graduate students in the humanities, including courses on James Joyce’s Ulysses, St. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Dostoevsky (focusing on Brothers Karamazov), Thomas Mann and David Foster Wallace. He is currently working on a book examining disease and the theological problem of evil. Other current writing projects include a study of James Joyce and the problem of evil.

Nov 13, 2024 • 41 min

This lecture was given on October 4th, 2024, at Johns Hopkins University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Steven J Jensen, who holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, teaches in The Center for Thomistic Studies. His fields of research include bioethics, moral psychology, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, human nature, and natural law. He is the author of several books, including Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics and The Human Person: A Beginner’s Thomistic Psychology.

Nov 12, 2024 • 38 min

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Fr. Kevin L. Flannery, S.J., is professor of the history of ancient philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and serves as a consultor of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. His main publications include W ays into the Logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias (Brill, 1995) and Acts Amid Precepts: the Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theory (Catholic University of America Press; T & T Clark, 2001).

Nov 11, 2024 • 32 min

This lecture was given on October 25th, 2024, at Virginia Military Institute. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Dr. Trabbic is an associate professor of philosophy at Ave Maria University in Florida where he has taught since 2006. His areas of interest include metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, the relationship between religion and politics, Aquinas, Heidegger, and postmodern philosophy. He has published articles on these topics in various academic and popular journals.

Nov 8, 2024 • 46 min

This lecture was given on March 3rd, 2024, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.

Nov 7, 2024 • 49 min

What exactly is just war theory? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Joseph Capizzi about the criteria for just war, the complexity of forgiveness in war, and post-war reconciliation and healing. You can watch this interview on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/TlumHTSOFjU . About the speaker: Joseph E. Capizzi is Dean of Theology at the Catholic University of America. He teaches in the areas of social and political theology, with special interests in issues in peace and war, citizenship, political authority, and Augustinian theology. He has written, lectured, and published widely on just war theory, bioethics, the history of moral theology, and political liberalism.

Nov 6, 2024 • 48 min

This lecture was given on November 8th, 2023, at Ave Maria University For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Nov 4, 2024 • 53 min

This lecture was given on January 9th, 2024, at North Carolina State University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.

Oct 31, 2024 • 1h 13m

This lecture was given on October 19th, 2023, at Georgetown University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee. She has been active in her religious community’s teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and assists with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation, serving as Associate Professor of Theology at Aquinas College. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper ( L’Osservatore Romano ), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, her favorite projects have been serving as editor-in-chief of her Congregation’s book, Praying as a Family , directing a television series of the same title with EWTN, co-directing the documentary Undivided Heart , and serving as the creator and founding Director of the University of Dallas Studies in Catholic Faith & Culture Program.

Oct 30, 2024 • 32 min

This lecture was given on February 20th, 2024, at Regent University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He loves his five grandchildren, four children, one wife, one cat, and one God.  He has written over 100 books including: Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Christianity for Modern Pagans, and Fundamentals of the Faith .

Oct 29, 2024 • 45 min

This lecture was given on March 20th, 2024, at University of Texas at El Paso. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Robert C. (“Rob”) Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, M. A. Oxford, Ph.D. UCLA. He is the author or co-author of five books, including The Atlas of Reality with Timothy H. Pickavance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017) and Is Thomas’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Nature Obsolete? (St. Augustine Press, 2022). He is the co-editor of four anthologies, including The Waning of Materialism (OUP, 2010) and Classical Theism (Routledge 2023).  He has been working recently on an Aristotelian interpretation of quantum theory, on defending and articulating hylomorphism in contemporary terms, and on interpreting and defending Thomas's Five Ways.

Oct 28, 2024 • 37 min

This lecture was given on April 4th, 2024, at Fordham University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture as well as Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. There he directs and teaches in a Great Books Catholic program for students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other regional colleges. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classics. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife and 5 children.

Oct 25, 2024 • 52 min

This lecture was given on January 29th, 2024, at Oxford University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Valentina Duca (1980) is a postdoctoral reseacher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, where she is a member of the Research Unit Biblical Studies and LOCEOC (The Louvain Centre for Eastern and Oriental Christianity). Her research mostly focuses on 7-8th century East-Syriac mysticism, explored through the original Syriac sources. Her research interests include Syriac and Eastern Christian monastic literature, Syriac translations of Greek spiritual authors, but also Biblical reception in mystical sources and ascetic reflection in Eastern and Western Christian texts.

Oct 23, 2024 • 1h 21m

This lecture was given on January 29th, 2024, at The Ohio State University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee. She has been active in her religious community’s teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and assists with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation, serving as Associate Professor of Theology at Aquinas College. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper ( L’Osservatore Romano ), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, her favorite projects have been serving as editor-in-chief of her Congregation’s book, Praying as a Family , directing a television series of the same title with EWTN, co-directing the documentary Undivided Heart , and serving as the creator and founding Director of the University of Dallas Studies in Catholic Faith & Culture Program.

Oct 18, 2024 • 51 min

This lecture was given on Jun 12th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies . For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series , and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters . He has written for numerous publications on the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition.

Oct 17, 2024 • 42 min

This lecture was given on Jun 12th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies . For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: ​Gregory M. Reichberg is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He is a philosopher specializing in military ethics and is currently engaged in a multi-year project on the use of artificial intelligence in armed conflict. He also writes on linkages between religion, peace, and conflict. For the last eight years he has led the Research School on Peace and Conflict, an academic consortium for doctoral students. From 2009-12 he was director of the PRIO Cyprus Centre in Nicosia, where he coordinated research and dialogue activities on the search for a political settlement to the island's division. Over the last fifteen years he has been engaged in religious dialogue on social/political issues in Iraq and other settings. Reichberg is a consultor to the Dicastery for Integral Human Development (appointed by Pope Francis in 2020).