“Catholic Social Thought: A Critical Investigation”
August 5-9, 2013
, University of California, Berkeley
This seminar is an intensive five-day course for graduate students in how to read, analyze, and discern continuities and discontinuities in Catholic Social Thought from the late 19th century to the present. Lectures, seminar reports, and discussion will focus upon original sources (encyclicals and other magisterial documents), beginning with Rerum novarum (1892) and concluding with Caritas in veritate (2009). These documents are more often referred to than actually read and studied. This intensive course is multi-disciplinary, for this tradition of social thought overlaps several disciplines in the contemporary university: political science, political philosophy, law, economics, theology, and history. The goal of the seminar is to provide a sufficient introduction to the tradition of Catholic Social Thought to enable graduate students to teach it as a course and integrate it into their own research.
Format: There will be two 2 ½ hour sessions each day. Professor Hittinger will open each session with a lecture, and then we will turn to general, seminar-style discussion of the text and the issues at hand. Students will be expected to make seminar presentations of the material under discussion.
Seminar Leader:
Russell Hittinger is the William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa. He is also a member of the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Professor Hittinger is the author of many books, including A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory, The First Grace: Rediscovering Natural Law in a Post-Christian Age, and Thomas Aquinas and the Rule of Law.
Location: The seminar will take place at the University of Berkeley School of Law. Students will be provided with accommodations and meals in the dormitories on campus for the duration of the seminar.
Application Information: This seminar will be open to graduate students in the humanities, theology, law and the social sciences. Applicants will be required to submit:
- A completed online application form.
- An updated CV.
- At least one and as many as two letter(s) of recommendation from a member of the program in which the student is currently enrolled.
- A statement of research interest no longer than 750 words, which includes an explanation of how this seminar might bear on the student’s current or future research plans.
- One example of written, academic work (25-30 pages maximum). Incomplete applications will not be considered.
Letters of recommendation can be emailed to mfranzen@lumenchristi.org or mailed to: Lumen Christi Institute, Graduate Seminars, 1220 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
APPLY HERE
We will admit 15 students to this seminar.
Any further questions can be directed towards Mark Franzen at mfranzen@lumenchristi.org.
