PAST SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail, Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P., and Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher
Offered: Spring 2025

The Undergraduate Working Group is an opportunity for undergraduate students and recent graduates to discuss the necessities of deep thinking and good intellectual work. "On Friendship” aimed to provide students with resources for understanding the value of all kinds of friendships they will encounter throughout their undergraduate career. Through conversations with Senior Fellows and faculty, we discussed the value and contingencies of friendship. Some questions included: What is the nature of friendship? Does it require necessary conditions? Are there evaluative measures to determine whether a friendship is worthwhile? And, what social value does it offer and what ends does it serve?

Facilitator: Professor Kristen Primus
Offered: Spring 2025

Descartes designed his Meditations to be thought with, or meditated upon: we readers are not just supposed to follow the Meditator's reports of his cognitive maneuvers, assessing the arguments he's making and eventually witnessing his arrival at the utmost certainty about foundational metaphysical matters—we're supposed to engage in the thinking for ourselves and bring ourselves to the very same certainty. In our meetings, we read the first few Meditations aloud, slowly and meditatively. We reflected on the argumentative moves of the Meditations as well as the distinction between merely understanding how an argument is supposed to go and accepting an argument in a more wholehearted way.

Facilitator: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher
Offered: Spring 2025

The usual default goal of our academic work is a completed project: a gradable paper, a publishable article, a conclusive argument. But academic work – and the intellectual life more broadly – requires more maintenance, cultivation and wandering than that which can be readily turned into a legible product. The seminar focused on so-called “half-baked thoughts” – provisional, nascent thinking, the trying on of ideas, or the thinking of thoughts that one may not be committed to. Loosely-held, incomplete thoughts do not have an immediate value in an economy of content production, but nonetheless have a necessary role in an intellectual life – no matter how derivative, repetitive, unfinished or private they may be.  We considered the theory and practice of provisional thinking from Roland Barthes and Blaise Pascal. Then, the seminar turned to discuss the habits and practice of this undervalued kind of thinking. How can we deliberately engage and embrace thinking that may have nothing immediately to “show” for it? How can we nurture and enjoy an intellectual life that is not wholly tethered to the production of academic content?

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail and Jared Brunner
Offered: Spring 2025

What does the act of walking make possible for our thinking? How can walking serve as a form of engagement with cultural and philosophical ideas? In this two week seminar, we discussed the physical and intellectual task of walking described in Francis Petrach’s “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux” and Michel de Certeau’s “Walking in the City.” Through these readings, we will consider how a philosophy of walking can further our thinking about ideas, our environment, and ourselves. 

Facilitators: Professor Steve Justice and Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2019, Fall 2017

A lot of people think it should be hard to be a Christian and a college student. Is it? Should it be? And in any case, how can you do both well? In this two-day retreat,  Professors Lara Buchak and Steven Justice offered intellectual and practical perspectives on Christians’ relationships with ideas and arguments, with professors and peers, with churches and pastors, and with the choices they face in their own lives. This retreat offered an opportunity for students to reflect together on what it means to be faithful to the choices we've already made.

Facilitators: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher, Professor Miguel García-Valdecasas, and Dr. Monica Mikhail
Offered: Fall 2024

“On Integrity” provided students with resources for understanding what it means to be a person of integrity in both personal and professional contexts.  Through conversations with Senior Fellows, we discussed habits of thought, work, and behavior that ground our ability to act with integrity in all areas of life. Some questions we discussed were: What does integrity require of us? Is it possible to be the same person — to act in the same way —  at home, in the classroom, and with fellow students and faculty? What is the value of — and challenges to — living with integrity? And how do we practice living honestly, in both private and in public?

Facilitator: Professor David Marno
Offered: Fall 2024

Iris Murdoch’s philosophy is the most influential modern defense of the view that the beautiful and the good are ultimately one. Or, perhaps a better way to put it is that in her account, acts of attending to beauty contribute to moral improvement. In fact, these two descriptions might be seen as different interpretations of Murdoch’s work, with the first focusing on the role of moral realism in her theory and the second invested in the question of practice and particularity. In this seminar, we talked about the relationship between these two interpretations. What is the good and how does it relate to the beautiful? How do we motivate ourselves to be better, and how do we translate our moral ideals into practice? What is the role of literature and the arts in Murdoch theory, and how do they compare to religion? And, last but not least, what do we, distracted habitants of the 21st century, make of the emphasis she places on attention?

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2024

Can we study science at a modern university and believe in miracles at the same time? Modern people, including believers, can be embarrassed by miracles, fearing to be accused of superstition or unwarranted credulity. Can it be ever rational to believe in miracles? We read two texts and considered the following questions: What are miracles? Can they violate laws of nature? How can we know that they have occurred? What do they tell us about God, about the world and ourselves?

Facilitator: Dr. Monica Mikhail
Offered: Fall 2024

How do social scientists recognize the “sacred” and make it legible to others? What are the essential characteristics of religion for social scientists? And how does a particular mode of inquiry shape the arguments one can make about religion and the religious life? In this seminar, we explored these questions by discussing two distinct sociological and philosophical frameworks for understanding religious experience. We read excerpts from two foundational figures in the study of religion — Emile Durkheim and William James — and explored how the sacred is defined, categorized, and apprehended according to their respective disciplines.

Facilitators: Professor Katie Peterson and Professor Young Suh
Offered: Spring 2024

We know about physical habits, like running or eating greens, and moral habits, like prayer or good actions. But what about aesthetic habits? These can be understood as habits of beauty: ways of placing ourselves in the path of aesthetic experience for the sake of self-investigation, healing, and even grace. In this workshop, participants shared examples of artists who worked with aesthetic habits and explored rituals that might deepen one’s relationship with beauty. Writing and thinking exercises framed aesthetic habits and their potential uses. The discussion also considered philosopher Elaine Scarry’s suggestion that contemplation of beauty might lead one toward justice. The workshop was timed with the Christian liturgical season of Lent, drawing on its traditions of directing the soul toward God through daily habits.

Facilitator: Professor Miguel García-Valdecasas
Offered: Spring 2024

All of us would like to be remembered as good persons, but a good person has virtues of character—dispositions to behave well in all circumstances. Some of these virtues are intellectual, concerning how we nurture our intellect: what information we seek, how we use it, and whether we direct it toward our own flourishing and that of others. This seminar discussed the importance of intellectual virtues and why we should pursue them. The first session examined Aristotle's notion of virtue and its contemporary relevance, while the second session focused on specific intellectual virtues such as autonomy, tenacity, courage, humility, and open-mindedness. Participants considered the contexts in which these virtues have the most value and how pursuing them might help one become a more proficient thinker.

Facilitators: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher, Professor Kristen Primus, Professor Chiyuma Elliot, and Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Spring 2024

The Undergraduate Working Group provided undergraduate students and recent graduates with opportunities to discuss the necessities of deep thinking and good intellectual work. The Spring 2024 working group, Virtuous Living, explored approaches to cultivating virtue when engaging with intellectual content, fellow students, and faculty within the classroom. Through conversations with Senior Fellows and faculty, participants discussed and practiced what is required when we take thinking, learning, and one another seriously. Some of the guiding questions included: What does it mean to seek to live a virtuous life as an undergraduate student? How does the pursuit of virtue shape the ways we listen to and engage others? What virtues undergird intellectual friendship, and what practices does it require? The group took as a starting point the shared goal of cultivating virtues for life within and beyond the university.

Facilitators: Natalie Runkle Griffioen, Jared Brunner
Offered: Spring 2024

Undergraduate and graduate students participated in a semester-long discussion series on the virtues that help us think with historical interlocutors. In each session, a facilitator introduced a historical thinker they studied as part of their academic work. Participants considered how to engage past thinkers whose ideas might feel distant or challenging, and what virtues are required to thoughtfully engage their work. Discussions explored how striving to understand the best version of another’s arguments might cultivate virtues that enable us to think well with others. The group also reflected on how our own historical moment and our moral or religious commitments can both shape and enrich the ways we engage with thinkers from the past.

Facilitator: Professor David Marno 
Offered: Fall 2023

Although we often imagine that Shakespeare ended his career with The Tempest—breaking his staff and drowning his book like Prospero—he actually concluded his career by returning, in his last active year as a playwright, to the genre with which he began: the history play. Yet Henry VIII was unlike anything he had written before. In focusing on England’s most divorce-prone king, Shakespeare and his co-author John Fletcher chose a period uncomfortably close to their own, perhaps explaining the play’s overt propaganda. Amidst the pageantry and celebration of both the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, the play invited reflection on what it means to turn the recent past into “history.” Participants discussed how history appears from different vantage points—below, above, and from the perspective of the audience—and how Shakespeare and Fletcher negotiated the demands of the present with traces of the past. The seminar explored what happens when the past is not neatly separable from the present.

Facilitator: Professor Kristen Primus
Offered: Fall 2023

This seminar examined different approaches to studying the history of philosophy. Some historians of philosophy prefer to adhere closely to texts, while others pursue more speculative reconstructions of arguments. The group discussed the tension between treating philosophical texts as historical artifacts and engaging them as active participants in ongoing philosophical conversations. Through these discussions, participants considered the merits and limitations of various methods and reflected on whether the distinction between historical and contemporary philosophical work is, in the end, as sharp as it seems.

Facilitators: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher, Dr. Monica Mikhail, Alan Templeton, Professor Katie Peterson, Professor Karl Van Bibber
Offered: Fall 2023

The Undergraduate Working Group provided a space for students to engage in deep intellectual inquiry. This working group offered students tools to harness the possibilities of their undergraduate education and reflect on the habits that support rigorous thought. Through conversations with Senior Fellows, participants explored how personal commitments inform academic work, what role creativity plays in intellectual life, and what different forms of thinking allow us to understand and create.

Facilitators: Natalya Nielson, Helia Pouyanfar, Ryan Reyndolds
Offered: Fall 2023

Undergraduate and graduate students participated in a semester-long discussion series on the relationship between religious traditions and intellectual work. Facilitated by graduate students and recent graduates, the series explored how religious beliefs, ideas, or concepts might implicitly shape one’s research or creative practice. Participants reflected on the implications of these influences for good intellectual work and considered what resources various religious traditions offer to help scholars and artists become the kinds of thinkers they aspire to be.

Facilitators: Professor Katie Peterson and Professor Young Suh
Offered: Spring 2023

The seminar explored what it means to seek the Good Life as an exile from one’s homeland and to speak in a language that is not one’s own. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, born in Korea in 1951 during the Korean War, emigrated to the United States in 1962. Her book Dictee served as an artistic response to living as a Korean woman and artist in the West during a time when Korea was still rebuilding after decades of colonization and war. In Dictee, Cha juxtaposed poems, historical documents, personal reflections, and photographs across three languages—English, Korean, and French—to create a self-portrait formed through multiplicity and tension. The seminar discussed writing as an act of speech grounded in personal experience and shaped by historical forces, as well as the struggle to narrate life from within one’s own body. Participants engaged with Cha’s work as readers, viewers, and writers, reflecting on how the act of speaking relates to the possibility of the Good Life and what it means for an exile to find a voice.

Facilitator: Dr. Monica Mikhail
Offered: Spring 2023

This seminar investigated what it means to live a good life when the condition of living is inseparable from dying. Participants examined how anthropological attention to death illuminates the contingencies of life as differently experienced across contexts. In the first session, discussions focused on the questions that arise for anthropologists studying the boundaries of life and the possibility of a good life in situations where such a life seems unattainable. The second session considered excerpts from ethnographies of communities living amid disaster, exploring how the intrusion of dying into everyday existence reshapes our understanding of what constitutes the preconditions of a good life.

Facilitators: Professor Kristin Primus, Professor Karl Van Bibber, Professor Carolyn Chen, Professor Joanna Picciotto, Professor Drew Jacoby-Senghor
Offered: Spring 2023

Undergraduate and graduate students took part in a semester-long conversation with UC Berkeley faculty on disciplinary approaches to “The Good Life.” Participants explored what different academic disciplines can teach about meaning, fulfillment, and well-being, and where the limits of disciplinary knowledge might lie. The discussions invited reflection on what intellectual tools each field offers for understanding and pursuing a life well-lived and what aspects of human experience remain beyond their reach.

Facilitator: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher
Offered: Spring 2023

Reading poetry (and literature broadly) doesn’t make us better people; it doesn’t necessarily reveal the secrets to living well; and it doesn’t even provide accurate information about the world or the experience of others. Sometimes it is enjoyable to read, but just as frequently it doesn’t bring pleasure, peace, or anything else. What is the use, then, of poetry in a life well-lived? In this reading group, we thought about these arguments in relation to poems in Tracy K. Smith’s collection Life on Mars.

Facilitator: Professor Elizabeth Kovats
Offered: Fall 2022

This seminar sought to develop a foundational understanding of commitment, both as a concept and as a component of a life well lived. Why does it, often, induce fear? And, perhaps surprisingly, how does it foster belonging, agency and freedom? Would a commitment to something intangible, such as one's imagination, compel thinking/acting that is distinct from that of a commitment to a personal/social relationship? Through shared discussion, participants worked toward a collective definition of commitment and its role in shaping human experience.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Spring 2022

This seminar examined the reciprocal relationship between humans and technology—how we create it, and how it in turn shapes us. Participants discussed the profound transformations brought about by technological change, from the expansion of accessible resources to the reordering of everyday life under new technological paradigms. Guided by selected readings and a documentary, the group reflected on how technology reconstructs our relationships with others, the world, ourselves, and the divine.

Facilitators: Professor Chiyuma Elliott and Professor Katie Peterson
Offered: Spring 2022

Taking its title from Lucille Clifton’s poem “We Do Not Know Very Much About Lucille’s Inner Life,” the series drew inspiration from African American poets who engaged the Western intellectual tradition—particularly the Bible—in creative and subversive ways. Participants read and reflected on these poets’ works to explore new formal, technical, and conceptual approaches in their own writing. The workshops, co-sponsored by the African American Intellectual Traditions Initiative and the Berkeley Institute, invited students to think deeply about interiority, tradition, and creative transformation.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2020

This seminar explored the universal reality of suffering and the human struggle to understand it. Participants reflected on the nature and meaning of pain, suffering, and evil, considering questions about their causes and compatibility with the existence of a good God. Through selected readings and discussion, the group examined how the inability to comprehend suffering can deepen it, and how philosophical and theological perspectives might help illuminate its place in human experience.

Facilitators: Professor Karl van Bibber and Dr. Elliot Rossomme
Offered: Spring 2021

This seminar examined the complex and evolving relationship between Christianity and modern science, challenging the popular notion that the two are inherently in conflict. Participants explored how scientific developments, such as evolutionary theory, quantum mechanics, and modern cosmology, interact with classical Christian doctrines of creation, evil and suffering, divine and human agency, and the ultimate future of the cosmos. Taking as a starting point the assumption that both scientific and theological perspectives offer valuable insights, the group discussed how each framework can enrich the other. Each meeting focused on a distinct topic, guided by short readings that framed conversation and reflection.

Facilitators: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P. and Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2020

This discussion group introduced participants to the foundational ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential thinkers in Western thought. The sessions focused on Aquinas’s understanding of human happiness and the moral virtues, helping first-time readers approach his writings with confidence. Participants explored how Aquinas conceived of the moral life as part of the rational creature’s journey toward its ultimate end and true happiness.

Facilitators: Miguel Samano and Joseph Rodriguez
Offered: Fall 2020

This reading group explored key essays by philosopher Charles Taylor on human nature, culture, and Christianity. Known for his broad intellectual range and accessible style, Taylor’s work provided a point of entry into discussions that bridged the humanities and the sciences. Participants examined his major ideas and their continuing relevance to contemporary questions of meaning, belief, and modern life.

Facilitator: Cassandra Sciortino
Offered: Fall 2020

This seminar examined the depiction of the Virgin Mary in European painting from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and into modern movements. Participants considered Marian art through both theological and art-historical lenses, discussing how images of Mary have reflected changing devotional, cultural, and artistic contexts across centuries.

Facilitators: Dr. Dena Fehrenbacher and Dr. Chad Hegelmeyer
Offered: Summer 2020

Three years before receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison delivered a series of Harvard lectures examining depictions of race in American culture. She argued that the American imagination has been profoundly shaped by the categories of “whiteness” and “blackness,” and that understanding their interdependence is essential to understanding American history. Guided by Morrison’s insights, this discussion group reflected on how American history and literature have both shaped and been shaped by an often-unconscious awareness of race.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2020

This seminar explored the nature and purpose of ritual in both religious and secular life. Participants examined what distinguishes a “ritual,” what functions it serves, and how it shapes human character. Through discussions of specific examples—such as prayer, liturgy, and secular practices—the group considered whether spiritual exercises must belong to a religious framework or whether their secular counterparts might fulfill similar roles. Participants were also invited to reflect on their own daily habits and the rituals that give structure and meaning to their lives.

Facilitators: Professor Karl van Bibber and Dr. Elliot Rossomme
Offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2017, Fall 2013

This seminar focused on Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) and its lasting impact on how we understand scientific progress. Challenging the traditional view of science as a steady accumulation of knowledge, Kuhn proposed that the history of science is punctuated by paradigm shifts—periods of revolutionary change. Participants read selections from Kuhn and related texts to discuss the implications of his model for both the practice of science and the evolution of knowledge across disciplines such as geology, cosmology, genetics, and neuroscience. The seminar also explored what, if anything, makes scientific inquiry distinct from other forms of knowing.

Facilitators: Professor Katie Peterson and Kellen Troxell
Offered: Spring 2020

This seminar considered the life and work of Flannery O’Connor, whose fiction is marked by wit, theological depth, and an unflinching portrayal of the grotesque. Participants discussed O’Connor’s understanding of “grace,” her engagement with Catholic theology, and her reflections on pain, faith, and human dignity. The seminar also examined how her stories address subjects such as race and whiteness, disability, and sexuality, situating O’Connor’s literary craft within broader spiritual and moral contexts.

Facilitator: Professor Katie Peterson
Offered: Fall 2019

This seminar explored James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963) as a starting point for reflecting on the possibility of an America where people of diverse backgrounds might live and flourish together. Participants examined Baldwin’s misgivings about racial reconciliation and the role of religion in American life, as well as his conviction that transformation could occur through a renewal of shared loves and hopes—so that, in his words, “we can make America what America must become.”

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2019

This seminar examined how architecture shapes not only the spaces we inhabit but also the ways we think, work, and worship. Participants discussed basic ideas about architectural form and the judgments we make about it, with particular attention to the ways architecture might “imitate”—or fail to imitate—nature. Illustrated lectures guided participants in considering how built environments influence imagination, meaning, and human experience.

Facilitators: Dr. Steven Hayward
Offered: Fall 2019

This seminar introduced participants to major contemporary conceptions of justice, many of which challenge the classical idea that justice is grounded in human reason. The group examined influential modern frameworks—such as social, racial, environmental, and spatial justice—alongside conservative and postmodern critiques. Through discussion of selected readings, participants considered how differing accounts of justice shape political life, moral reasoning, and public discourse today.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Spring 2019

Jane Austen’s novels are charged with moral significance, and offer guidance, both serious and hilarious, in the virtuous conduct of life. Her heroines learn about the importance of good character and the social virtues that perfect it. Sense and Sensibility tells the story of two sisters who learn these lessons (and others!) through the struggles with courtship and their search for marriage. This group considered literature and ethics through the lens of Jane Austen.

Facilitator: Professor Thomas Cavanaugh
Offered: Spring 2019

This seminar explored prominent moral questions arising from recent medical, legal, and cultural developments. Topics included genetic engineering, cloning, physician-assisted suicide, body identity integrity disorder, and patient autonomy. Participants discussed whether medicine possesses intrinsic moral principles or whether its practice is guided primarily by external forces such as law, society, and patient preference. Through brief readings and discussion, the group examined how differing conceptions of medicine shape responses to contemporary ethical dilemmas.

Facilitators: Amada Beltran and Kate Arenchild
Offered: Spring 2019

This seminar considered the question of what defines womanhood in the twenty-first century and whether traditional frameworks of success—domestic or professional—capture the full range of feminine potential. Participants explored the writings of philosopher Edith Stein, who, after her religious conversion, proposed an alternative understanding of feminine fulfillment. Her work provided a foundation for reflecting on vocation, identity, and the balance between individuality and relational life.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P
Offered: Spring 2019

This seminar examined whether morality depends on belief in God. While atheists often claim that moral life is possible without religion, many theists argue that moral law requires a divine source. Participants read and compared arguments from contemporary philosophers as well as from historical figures such as John Henry Newman, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Aquinas. Discussions aimed to clarify how moral reasoning has been shaped by differing conceptions of divinity, law, and human nature.

Facilitator: Professor Katie Peterson
Offered: Spring 2019

This seminar explored the poetry of T. S. Eliot—its musicality, imagery, and formal innovation—alongside the poet’s unconventional embrace of Christian faith and traditionalism within a modernist context. Participants read short selections that address themes of guilt, time, love, and human connection, considering whether Eliot’s “conservative” vision might represent a radical response to the spiritual and cultural crises of the modern and postmodern eras.

Facilitators: Simon Kuang, Emily Kinnaman, and Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Spring 2019

This group read and discussed selections from Søren Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity (1850) and Attack on Christendom, in which he condemned the established church for diluting Christian faith to fit cultural norms. Participants examined Kierkegaard’s critique of “Christendom” and his vision for reintroducing authentic Christianity into a secularized world, reflecting on how his ideas might resonate with life and belief in a post-Christian age.

Facilitator: Professor Steven Justice
Offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2018, Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2014

The Undergraduate Colloquium provided students with conceptual and practical tools for pursuing their education and cultivating intellectual life. Discussions addressed how to read and think critically, organize academic work, engage meaningfully with unfamiliar ideas, and navigate the challenges of university study and public discourse. Framed by the Christian intellectual tradition but open to a wide range of perspectives, the colloquium fostered an environment of inquiry, confidence, and reflection.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2018

This seminar explored fundamental questions about the nature and promise of artificial intelligence. Participants discussed whether AI might surpass human intelligence and what such developments could mean for knowledge, power, and human dignity. Through short readings and open discussion, the group examined philosophical and scientific perspectives on consciousness, decision-making, and moral status in artificial beings. Central questions included whether robots could be said to think, act freely, or possess rights, and how AI challenges our understanding of what it means to be human.

Facilitator: Dr. Steven Hayward
Offered: Fall 2018

This seminar introduced participants to the political and moral thought of Edmund Burke, often regarded as the first modern conservative. Through discussions of his writings on the French Revolution and related topics, participants considered Burke’s views on natural law, the importance of tradition, the virtue of prudence, and the role of religion in shaping culture. The group also reflected on how Burke’s ideas illuminate enduring tensions between the political “right” and “left,” and whether his thought offers guidance for understanding the challenges of contemporary social and political life.

Facilitator: Professor Katie Peterson
Offered: Fall 2018

This seminar examined the idea that difficult emotions—anger, envy, disgust, frustration, or guilt—can be sources of moral insight and self-knowledge. Participants read brief selections from The Iliad, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, James Baldwin’s essays, and other texts to explore how writers depict emotional intensity as a mode of understanding. Discussions centered on how “bad” feelings might yield productive, even praiseworthy, outcomes and how literature and philosophy help us interpret the ethical significance of human emotion.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2018

This discussion group read and discussed selections from Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity (1968), written in the turbulent political and cultural climate of the late 1960s. Ratzinger’s text, originally a series of university lectures, sought to reintroduce students to the intellectual foundations of Christian belief at a time of widespread skepticism. Participants reflected on how Ratzinger’s theological engagement with the revolutions of his day might continue to speak to contemporary questions about faith, reason, and modernity.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2018

This seminar explored the nature of love through readings from Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. Participants reflected on the differences between various forms of love—romantic, friendly, and neighborly—and examined what the Christian commandment to “love one’s neighbor” entails. Discussions emphasized practical wisdom, considering what love requires us to believe, do, and hope for in the context of everyday life.

Facilitators: Professor Karl van Bibber, Dr. Jonathan Kohler, Dr. Ravit Dotan
Offered: Spring 2018

This seminar investigated whether science can or should be free from the influence of values. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of science, participants explored the meaning and possibility of “value-free” science and debated whether such freedom is compatible with objectivity and reliability. Through examples from different scientific disciplines, the group examined how moral, social, and political values shape scientific practice and considered the implications for public trust in science and for policy-making in a value-laden world.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Spring 2018

This seminar examined the enduring question of whether human beings truly possess free will. Participants considered historical and contemporary challenges to the idea of freedom, including materialist perspectives from Marxism, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as theological doctrines of predestination. Through selected readings, the group explored arguments for and against the existence of free will, discussing how freedom might best be understood and what justifies belief in it.

Facilitator: Professor Katie Peterson
Offered: Spring 2018

This seminar explored the relationship between poetry and prayer, two forms of expression that seek to bridge the personal and the transcendent. Participants considered how poetry might inform Christian thought and practice—and how Christian theology might, in turn, deepen poetic understanding. Through close readings of poems associated with four distinct Christian “states of mind,” the group reflected on how art and faith intersect in language, emotion, and devotion.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2017

This seminar examined painting as a means of entering more deeply into the nature of reality. Participants considered Aristotle’s claim that “art imitates nature,” asking what it means for painting to imitate the real and what such imitation reveals about both art and truth. Through visual examples and discussion, the group explored how artistic representation connects to broader philosophical questions about perception, reality, and human understanding.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2017

This seminar addressed the question of how to engage with people who hold views perceived as noxious, irrational, or dangerous. Participants examined arguments for and against limiting freedom of expression, particularly in academic contexts, and considered how universities might serve as spaces for civil engagement across deep differences, including religious and moral ones. The discussion encouraged reflection on the balance between open inquiry and responsible discourse in intellectual communities.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2017

This seminar explored the place of distinctly religious assumptions within the contemporary secular university. While the question is often framed in terms of potential conflict between religious commitment and the pursuit of knowledge, participants considered a broader inquiry: whether religious worldviews might positively contribute to academic life. Through discussion, the group examined how religious assumptions—about what the world is and what we ought to do—can enrich the university’s intellectual and moral search for truth.

Facilitators: Professor Steven Justice and Dr. Matthew Rose 
Offered: Spring 2017

This seminar addressed the problem of identity by drawing on insights from various religious traditions. Participants examined questions of selfhood—who we are, what defines us, and how our values, hopes, and intuitions shape our sense of self. Through readings and discussion, the group explored how religious thought can offer conceptual resources that clarify and deepen our understanding of personal identity and human experience.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Spring 2017

This seminar introduced participants to the metaphysical thought of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, focusing on his Discourse on Metaphysics and Monadology. The group examined Leibniz’s claim that the world is rationally ordered toward the good—that everything, from human actions to natural events, occurs for a reason and contributes to the best possible order. Through discussion, participants considered how Leibniz’s ideas illuminate questions about God, creation, and humanity’s place within the cosmos.

Facilitators: Dr. Alexandra McCleary and Dr. Kathleen Powers
Offered: Spring 2017

This seminar examined the relationship between feminist spirituality and the Catholic tradition. Participants challenged the assumption that feminism must be in opposition to Christian orthodoxy, exploring instead how it might coexist within and even enrich the Church’s theology. Readings included selections from Edith Stein and Pope John Paul II, two influential twentieth-century thinkers who articulated distinct yet complementary visions of the dignity and vocation of women within Catholic thought.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Fall 2016

This seminar explored the phenomenon of conversion as a radical shift in perspective. Participants examined how individuals come to adopt fundamentally different viewpoints—whether through rational deliberation, emotional experience, or transformative encounters such as art or literature. The group also discussed whether understanding another perspective requires belief in it, and how one might choose among competing worldviews. Through these questions, participants reflected on the dynamics of change, commitment, and the search for truth.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2016

This seminar introduced participants to Plato’s Gorgias and its central ethical arguments. Plato’s moral philosophy sought to ground morality in reason rather than in custom or sentiment, presenting readers with a striking challenge: to discover what is truly good for oneself or risk living as a slave to ignorance and desire. The group examined key passages from the dialogue and reflected on Plato’s enduring influence on Western moral and philosophical traditions.

Facilitator: Professor Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Offered: Fall 2016

This seminar investigated the relationship between architecture and nature, reconsidering Aristotle’s claim that art imitates nature. Participants explored how architecture—often cited as an exception to representational theories of art—nonetheless reflects natural principles in form, function, and harmony. The discussion distinguished several meanings of “nature” and considered how each applies to architectural design and aesthetics.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2016

This seminar examined how professional life shapes and reflects moral identity. Participants discussed questions of fulfillment, vocation, and value—how one’s work should relate to personal commitments, what constitutes meaningful labor, and how material considerations intersect with ethical ones. Drawing from readings in sociology, literature, economics, history, and theology, the group reflected on how work influences our understanding of time, purpose, and the good life, while also considering the particular moral challenges of modern professional life.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Spring 2016

This seminar examined the question of what education is for—a question central to the life of any student but increasingly absent from modern universities. Participants discussed the purpose and value of liberal education in the twenty-first century, exploring themes such as the importance of intellectual tradition, the role of critique, the cultivation of the mind, and the connection between the humanities and human freedom. The group also reflected on the challenges facing the liberal arts today and what is at stake in defending them.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2016

What does it mean to love? How is the Christian commandment to love one’s neighbor different from loving one’s friends or partner? And what does love require one to believe, do, and hope for?

Prof. Lara Buchak's seminar led students through selections of Soren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. Discussions emphasized Kierkegaard's understanding of practical wisdom, that is, how we should live our everyday lives.

Facilitator: Professor Steven Justice
Offered: Spring 2016

This seminar focused on the Purgatorio, the second part of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, one of the most significant works of the European Middle Ages. Rather than emphasizing its historical or literary dimensions, the discussion centered on what Dante’s vision reveals about the human will—its desires, choices, and discipline. Participants considered how Purgatorio portrays the process of purification and the moral education of the will, offering an “art of willing” that continues to speak to questions of moral formation and human striving.

Facilitators: Professor Connor Grubaugh and Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Fall 2015

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue is a work which examines the historical roots of contemporary moral disagreement and offers an explanation for the breakdown of moral consensus and traditional ethics in Western cultures. Discussions touched on the book’s major themes: the incoherence of modern moral debate, the emotional basis of contemporary moral attitudes, and the place of the virtues in the restoration of civil discourse.

Facilitators: Dr. Matthew Rose and Professor Karl van Bibber
Offered: Fall 2015

This seminar explored how professional life shapes and reflects moral identity. Participants discussed questions of vocation, fulfillment, and the ethical dimensions of labor: how to choose meaningful work, what role money and ambition should play, and how one’s job intersects with personal commitments and identity. Readings drawn from sociology, literature, economics, history, and theology provided interdisciplinary perspectives on the moral significance of work and the hidden challenges of modern professional life.

Facilitator: Professor Steven Justice
Offered: Fall 2015

This seminar introduced Dante’s Paradiso, the final part of the Divine Comedy, as a profound meditation on the life of the intellect. Participants explored how Dante’s vision of Heaven presents a disciplined and transformative “art of thinking,” one that integrates reason, imagination, and love in the pursuit of truth. The group approached the Paradiso less as a medieval artifact and more as a guide to the moral and intellectual formation of the mind.

Facilitator: Professor Mark McClay
Offered: Fall 2015

This cross-disciplinary seminar examined foundational approaches to understanding religion as a human phenomenon. Participants read classic texts from thinkers such as Émile Durkheim and Clifford Geertz, among others, discussing how religion can be defined, distinguished from the secular, and interpreted across individual, social, and cultural dimensions. The group considered how these theories continue to shape contemporary debates about belief, ritual, and meaning.

Facilitators: Professor Karl van Bibber and Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2015

This seminar examined whether there is a rational method for forming and revising beliefs about God. Participants engaged with Nancey Murphy’s argument that theology operates in a manner similar to science—through research programs, data gathering, and hypothesis testing. Readings and discussions focused on historical and contemporary examples, including Jonathan Edwards’s criteria for genuine religious experience and Ignatius of Loyola’s rules for discernment. The group considered how both science and theology pursue progress, reflecting on the extent to which their methods and aims overlap.

Facilitator: Cassandra Sciortino
Offered: Spring 2015

This seminar explored European art from the early modern to the modern period, tracing how artworks respond to the devotional, ethical, and aesthetic forces of their time. Participants discussed how visual art engages the viewer’s perception and emotion, asking how images come to possess the power to transform consciousness. The seminar also examined the role of aesthetic experience in bridging the sacred and the sensory, illuminating how art participates in spiritual and moral reflection.

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail and Dr. Frank Ngo
Offered: Spring 2015

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Fall 2014

This workshop explored the relationship between reason and emotion in the formation of religious belief. Participants read short passages from four thinkers representing distinct perspectives on the nature of belief, discussing whether faith depends primarily on emotional experience, rational reflection, or an integration of both. The group examined each view’s account of why people believe and what it implies about when and how religious beliefs can be considered justified.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Fall 2014

This seminar provided an introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics, one of the foundational texts in the philosophical study of human happiness and virtue. Participants examined Aristotle’s argument that true happiness requires moral goodness, and that goodness itself depends on understanding the purpose and nature of human life. Through guided discussion, the group considered Aristotle’s vision of the good life and what distinguishes a virtuous existence from a deficient one.

Facilitators: Professor Karl van Bibber and Dr. Nuri Kim
Offered: Fall 2014

This reading group focused on the ethical principles guiding scientific research and professional conduct. Using On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research as a core text, participants discussed topics including mentoring, data sharing, experimentation with human or animal subjects, conflicts of interest, and responses to misconduct. Aimed at students with research experience, the group sought to articulate and examine the often implicit ethical norms that sustain the integrity of scientific inquiry.

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail and Professor Connor Grubaugh
Offered: Fall 2014

This seminar surveyed early Christian perspectives on social and political justice. Beginning with the writings of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, participants traced the development of Christian views on justice through the works of Eusebius of Caesarea, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Augustine. The group explored how these thinkers integrated classical philosophical ideas with Christian theology to form enduring conceptions of charity, equity, and the moral responsibilities of the community.

Facilitator: Professor Lara Buchak
Offered: Spring 2014

This workshop explored the relationship between scientific inquiry and religious belief. Participants examined the foundational assumptions underlying both science and religion, discussing whether these worldviews necessarily conflict or might be reconciled. The group also considered how scientific discoveries influence theological reflection, addressing what current science implies about the place of religion in a modern understanding of the world.

Facilitator: Dr. Matthew Rose
Offered: Spring 2014

This seminar investigated the nature of secularism, asking whether it merely represents the decline of religious faith in public life or constitutes a worldview with its own values and aspirations. Through readings and discussion of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, participants sought to understand how and why many people identify as secular, exploring Taylor’s account of belief, meaning, and modernity in an age shaped by both faith and its absence.

Facilitator: Professor Charity Ketz
Offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2013

This workshop offered undergraduates,  graduate students, visiting scholars, and faculty a space to share and discuss works in progress. Participants exchanged feedback on draft chapters, essays, and articles while becoming familiar with one another’s research aims, disciplinary methods, and writing practices. The workshop emphasized sustained engagement, collaboration, and the value of developing ideas through early and constructive dialogue.

Offered: Spring 2014

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail and Professor Mark McClay
Offered: Spring 2014

Facilitators: Dr. Monica Mikhail and Bola Malek
Offered: Spring 2014

This seminar surveyed the writings of the apostles and early theologians concerning the origins of the Christian community and the principles that defined its unity and mission. Through close readings of select passages from the New Testament and early Christian thinkers, participants explored the evolving meanings of the term “church” and examined how the early Church expressed its identity through sacramental and communal practices.