Upcoming Events

 Thursday, May 23, 4:00-6:00 PM
University of Chicago
Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall
1212 East 59th Street

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Part of the Lumen Christi Institute Program in Economics and Catholic Social Thought, a continuing exchange between research economists, bishops, and scholars, this symposium will address poverty and economic development; social, cultural, and economic integration; and emigration and its impact on developing countries.

Keynote address:
Peter Cardinal Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

Presentations by:
Robert Lucas, University of Chicago Economics Department

Luigi Zingales, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Joseph Kaboski, University of Notre Dame Economics Department

Sponsored by The Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago, the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and the Seng Foundation Endowment for Market-Based Programs & Catholic Values, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame.

Peter Cardinal Turkson is President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He was Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana from 1992 to 2009 and President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference from 1997 to 2005.

Robert Lucas is the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995 and is considered a foremost expert on Macroeconomic growth and development. His publications include Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics, and Lectures on Economic Growth.

Luigi Zingales is the Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  He is a faculty research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow for the Center for Economic Policy Research and a fellow for the European Governance Institute. He is the co-author of Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists, author of A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity and a contributing editor of City Journal.

Joseph Kaboski is the David F. and Erin M. Seng Foundation Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on growth, development and international economics. In 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Frisch Medal for the best paper in the journal Econometrica and has published scholarly articles in many other journals, including the American Economic Review and The Journal of Economic Theory.

Modern Christian Writers
Spring 2013 Non-Credit Course
Gavin House, 1220 East 58th Street
Informal Dinner: 6:00PM
Lecture: 6:30PM

Intended for University students, faculty, and recent graduates. Others interested in attending, contact info@lumenchristi.org.

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Addressing his fellow Christians, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews said, “Here we have no abiding city.” Christian writers characteristically view the societies in which they live both from the inside and as strangers or sojourners. This series will treat of a variety of modern authors whose faith made them aliens in their own homelands while giving them insight and sympathy into the dilemmas of their own time. No prior acquaintance with the writers on the part of attendees is required or presumed.

SCHEDULE

Tuesday, May 28:
Ronald Knox
Paul Mankowski, S.J., Lumen Christi Institute

Past Sessions:

Tuesday, April 9:
Evelyn Waugh
Paul Mankowski, S.J., Lumen Christi Institute

Tuesday, April 16:
Hilaire Belloc
Paul Mankowski, S.J., Lumen Christi Institute

Tuesday, April 23
A Study in Greene: Charting the 20th Century Catholic Literary Revival
Mark Bosco, S.J., English and Theology, Loyola University

Tuesday, April 30
Charles Péguy – A Lonely Fighter
Thomas Pavel, Romance Languages & Literatures, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago

Tuesday, May 7:
Paul Claudel: a Poet at the Foot of the Cross
Lauren Bergier, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago

Tuesday, May 14:
Flannery O’Connor’s Fictional Habitus
Richard Rosengarten, Religion & Literature at the Divinity School, University of Chicago

Tuesday, May 21:
Dostoyevsky: Dreams and Demons
Robert Bird, Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago

M. Burcht Pranger
University of Amsterdam

Wednesday, May 29, 4:30 PM
Swift Hall, Common Room
1025 East 58th Street

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The 12th century monastic reformer Bernard of Clairvaux recruited hundreds of young men to the cloister or claustrum (enclosure) of Cistercian monastic life. The rhythm of life in the monastic enclosure not only rules the structured existence of the monks but also alters their experience of time from linear to circular while maintaining the goal of the world to come. Bernard’s eloquent insistence on this way of life represents the end of an era and, to an extent, the end of the Middle Ages.

Burcht Pranger studied theology, medieval philosophy and medieval Latin at the Universities of Amsterdam, Toronto and Oxford. Since 1976 he has taught the History of Christianity at the University of Amsterdam. His publications—which focus on medieval monastic figures such as Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux—include The Artificiality of Christianity and Eternity’s Ennui: Temporality, Perseverance and Voice in Augustine and Western Literature.

“Exile and the canzone in Dante’s Earthly Paradise (Purgatorio 28-33)”

Laurence Hooper, University of Chicago
Thursday, May 30, 4:30 PM
Classics 110, 1010 East 59th Street

Cosponsored by the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures and the Medieval Studies Workshop

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Often considered the greatest work of Italian literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy depicts the exiled soul’s journey to God. At the end of the Purgatorio, Dante reaches the Garden of Eden. But, despite the setting of earthly paradise and the reappearance of the poet’s youthful love Beatrice, the protagonist finds remorse in Eden rather than triumph. The Earthly Paradise cantos can be understood as a reclaiming of Dante’s former identity of spiritually exiled lyric poet, wherein both poet and poem exist in a relationship of exile to the world that receives them.

Laurence Hooper is Donnelley Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in Italian Studies at Cambridge University in 2009. He is currently working on a book based on his dissertation entitled Exile and Authorship in Dante.

“The Spiritual Nature of Man”
Anselm Müller, University of Trier
Wednesday, June 5, 4:30 PM
Classics 110, 1010 E. 59th St.

Cosponsored by the Department of Philosophy

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Are human beings essentially spiritual creatures or can human life be explained entirely by material principles?  The great twentieth century philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe, suggests that we are essentially spiritual beings because we are naturally and consciously oriented beyond our material life toward transcendent norms of truth and goodness.  This is the ground of our dignity and value over other, non-spiritual animals.

A student of Elizabeth Anscombe and Anthony Kenny at Oxford in the early sixties, Anselm Müller has taught philosophy at Oxford University, Australian National University, University of Trier, University of Luxemborg, and Keimyung University. He has written many books and articles in the areas of ethics, rationality, action theory, philosophy of mind, and the history of philosophy (especially Aristotle and Wittgenstein). Müller holds the title of Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy this Spring quarter.

Fr. David Knight
Tuesday, June 11, 5:30-8:00 PM
Mayer Brown LLP
71 South Wacker Drive
Chicago, IL 60606

$30 General Admission/ $10 Students
Free for University of Chicago students and faculty 

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We can give our children and ourselves a Mass that attracts them and that nourishes and expresses the faith of the Catholic Church. Both the clergy and laity alike simply have to celebrate the Mass in a way that shows we understand its mystery, experience it ourselves, and draw power from it to live out that mystery in daily life. This talk will explain how to do that.

5:30: Registration and Refreshments
6:00: Welcome and Introduction
6:05: Presentation
7:15: Wine and Cheese Reception

David Knight was ordained in 1961. He served as a missionary to the Ngama people in Danamaji, Chad for three years, and he then earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. A priest of the Diocese of Memphis, he served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church. Fr. Knight has published numerous books, including His Way: An Everyday Plan for Following Jesus and Reaching Jesus: Five Steps to a Fuller Life, and Experiencing the Mass. He currently runs His Way Center for Spiritual Growth and teaches in the Christian Brothers University Graduate Program in Catholic Studies and the Diocese of Memphis Institute for Liturgy and Spirituality.