de Nicola Center presents 24th annual Fall Conference, ‘Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination’
More than 1,200 scholars, students and guests from around the world will attend the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture’s 24th annual Fall Conference, “Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination.” The conference, which began Thursday (Oct. 31) and concludes Saturday (Nov. 2), will feature more than 175 papers, panels and performances across three days of conversation on the enduring and inexhaustible nature of the Catholic imagination. The full schedule is available at ethicscenter.nd.edu/fc24.
The de Nicola Center collaborated with the Biennial Catholic Imagination Conference on the theme for this year’s gathering. Established by Dana Gioia, an internationally acclaimed poet and author and the recipient of the 2010 Notre Dame Laetare Medal, the Biennial Catholic Imagination Conference aims to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the richness and variety of contributions by Catholic artists; explore the critical and theoretical foundations of the Catholic imagination; and foster community and collaboration among writers and readers who share a knowledge of and respect for the Catholic tradition.
Gioia, former California state poet laureate and chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts from 2003 to 2009, will open the conference with a talk and reading titled “Becoming a Catholic Writer,” at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Downes Club of Corbett Family Hall.
Judith Wolfe, professor of philosophical theology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, will offer a Friday evening plenary keynote titled “The Theological Imagination,” reflecting on how Christian faith gives believers courage to shape the world creatively in the face of ambiguity, contradiction and clashing viewpoints. The conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion of “The Future of the Catholic Imagination,” featuring author Ron Hansen and poets James Matthew Wilson and Sally Thomas, in conversation with Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.
Other featured speakers include Cyril O’Regan, the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at Notre Dame and recipient of the 2024 Ratzinger Prize in Theology; Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, writer, poet and professor, Fordham University; Irish poet and novelist John F. Deane; Robin Jensen, the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology and concurrent professor of the history of art at Notre Dame; Academy Award-nominated animator and director Timothy Reckart; and more than 150 additional speakers and performers.
Conference sessions this year include author readings, poetry recitals, staged play readings, film screenings and musical performances from The Saint Hildegard Project, Colin Cutler and Hot Pepper Jam, and J.J. Wright.
The Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening keynotes will be livestreamed at ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/fall-conference/streamfc/. Many other sessions will be recorded and posted to the de Nicola Center’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/ndethics after the conference concludes.
Walk-up registration is available at the check-in desk in the McKenna Hall Conference Center from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.
Since 2000, the de Nicola Center’s annual Fall Conference has brought together the world’s leading Catholic thinkers, as well as those from other traditions, in fruitful discourse and exchange on the most pressing and vexed questions of ethics, culture and public policy today. The Fall Conference has since become one of the most important academic fora for wide-ranging conversations that engage the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition from a variety of disciplinary points of departure, including theology, philosophy, political theory, law, history, economics and the social sciences, as well as the natural sciences, literature and the arts. Recent past speakers include Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Mary Ann Glendon, Rémi Brague, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel and Etsuro Sotoo.
More information is available on the de Nicola Center’s website, ethicscenter.nd.edu.
Originally published by at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Oct. 31.
Latest ND NewsWire
- High color complexity in social media images proves more eye-catching, increases user engagementComplex images in a social media post tend to capture greater user attention, leading to increased engagement with social media posts, according to new research from Vamsi Kanuri, the Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Marketing at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
- Arun Agrawal to lead Notre Dame’s new University-wide sustainability initiativeArun Agrawal, a renowned scholar of environmental politics and sustainable development, will join the University of Notre Dame on Jan. 1, 2025, as the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a key priority in the University’s strategic framework.
- Theologian Gary Anderson awarded 2024 Barry Prize; Paolo Carozza, Richard Garnett and Christian Smith also honoredGary A. Anderson, the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded a 2024 Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters. The academy conferred the prize Wednesday (Oct. 23) in a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
- Law School Professor Derek Muller joins CNN as contributor for 2024 presidential electionNationally recognized election law scholar Derek T. Muller, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, has joined CNN as a contributor for the 2024 election cycle to provide his perspective and context to the network’s coverage of the presidential race.
- Sister Draru Mary Cecilia, LSMIG, receives Notre Dame Award for Outstanding Contributions to Catholic EducationThe Notre Dame Award for Outstanding Contributions to Catholic Education, awarded by the Alliance for Catholic Education, honors those who have made generous, lifetime commitments to sustain and strengthen Catholic schools. As executive director of the African Sisters Education Collaborative, Sister Draru oversees the education for Catholic sisters in 10 African countries. She has spent much of her life working to expand women’s education in Uganda and elsewhere on the African continent.
- In memoriam: Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., renowned Notre Dame theologian, father of ‘liberation theology’Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., professor emeritus of theology at Notre Dame and widely regarded as the “father of liberation theology,” died Tuesday (Oct. 22) in Lima, Peru. He was 96.
