Advanced Research Seminar in Philosophy and Theology
Founded in 2013 by Professors Jeffrey Bloechl (Boston College, philosophy) and Andrew Prevot (Boston College, theology), the Advanced Research Seminar in Philosophy and Theology encourages discussion among graduate students and faculty within these fields.
The seminar generally meets four times each semester, once per month, over a casual lunch. Each meeting begins with a 30-45 minutes presentation of ongoing research, followed by discussion for about 45 minutes. Most presentations are given by Boston College faculty and graduate students, but an effort is made to also invite people from other universities. By the end of the fifth year of the seminar’s existence, we had met nearly fifty times and welcomed scholars from several US institutions beyond Boston College and several outside the United States.
Students enrolled in the Joint MA program in philosophy and theology are required to attend. All meetings are open to students, staff, researchers, and faculty of the entire university.
Speakers and Presentations to Date
| Tomáš Halík Charles University, Prague | The Afternoon of Christianity |
| William Woody, SJ Graduate Student, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry | ’Out of the Depths I Call to You, Oh Lord!': Lamentation and the Ethical Demands of Forgiveness |
| Stephen Suhr Graduat Student, Theology Department, Boston College | 'Il mio veder fu maggio che 'l parlar mostra”: Expressing the Inexpressible—The Vernacular and Dante's Philosophy of Language in the Commedia |
| James Mumford Institute for Advanced Studies and Culture, University of Virginia | For Real? Contemporary Psychology, Iris Murdoch and the Status of the Good |
| Michael Marder University of the Basque Country | Resonances, or Hearing 'Ecology' Otherwise with St. Hildegard of Bingen |
| David Newheiser Australian Catholic University | A Political Theology for the Present Moment |
| Brian Robinette Boston College | Falling in Love with a Blank: Contemplation and Atheism |
| Bruce Marshall Southern Methodist University | Perplexities of Grace: Jansenism, Aquinas and Postliberal Theology |
| Andrew Barrette Research Fellow, Lonergan Center Boston College | On the Role and Meaning of Theology in Husserl’s Work |
| Christian Dupont Burns Librarian, Boston College | Receptions of Phenomenology in French Philosophy and Religious Thought |
| Tom Tatterfield Graduate Student, Boston College | Kenosis and Mixture in Gregory of Nyssa’s Christology |
| Ian Corbin Graduate Student, Boston College | Beauty, Transcendence, Kalliphobia in Postwar Art |
| Elizabeth Antus Boston College | Christian Theology and the Problem of the Impoverished Self |
| Sabine Fos Falque Practicing Psychoanalyst Tours, France | Psychoanalysis of the Spread Body, with Remarks on the Phenomenology and Theology of the Spread Body |
| Led by Brian Robinette and Jeffrey Bloechl, Boston College | Group Discussion of Thomas Merton Fifty Years After His Death |
| Gunda Werner Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen | "Embodied Religion and Public Spaces--A Concept of Public Theology in Discussion with Judith Butler" |
| Pat Byrne Boston College | Love and Justice are One: Reflections from Bernard Lonergan |
| Mara Willard Research Fellow Boisi Center, Boston College | A Working Relationship? Hannah Arendt and Augustine |
| Tamsin Jones Trinity College, Hartford Responsible Subjects | On the Ability to Respond to Transcendence |
| James Taylor European Center for the Study of War and Peace, Zagreb | Pax Christi as Experience. A Phenomenological Intervention in the Just War / Pacificism Debate |
| Eric Severson Seattle University | Levinas and the Paradox of Apology |
| David Delio University of the Holy Cross, New Orleans | Newman’s Idea of the Church within His Idea of Education: Some Epistemological Considerations |
| Robert Elliot Graduate Student, Boston College | On the Living God. The Doctrine of God in Conversation with the New Materialisms |
| Andrew Prevot Boston College | The Immanence of Mystical Life: Michel Henry |
| Jordan Wood Graduate Student, Boston College | Creation is Incarnation: The Metaphysical Peculiarity of the Logoi in Maximus the Confessor |
| Peter Fritz College of the Holy Cross | Alethic and Apocalyptic Logics in Karl Rahner |
| Louis Caruna, SJ Gregorian University, Rome | Evolutionary Explanation and Religion |
| Emmanuel Falque Institut Catholique de Paris | Must We Cross the Rubicon? Philosophy and Theology: New Boundaries |
| Christopher McLaughlin Graduate Student, Boston College | Plato’s Reason, Clement’s Christ: Obedience to Logos in Plato and Clement of Alexandria |
| Monachos Maximos Constas Hellenic College / Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology | Structures of Being in Dionysios the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor |
| Frederick Lawrence Boston College | Foundational Theology as Political Theology |
| Crina Gschwandtner Fordham University | On the Way of Perfection—Alone of Together? Mystics and Their Communities |
| James Mumford Research Fellow, University of Virginia | Ethics at the Beginning of Life: A Phenomenological Critique |
| Won-Jai Hur Graduate Student, Boston College, | Embodiment and Theology of the Cross in Edith Stein: A Comparative and Theological Analysis in Conversation with Tibetan Lojong |
| Stephen Pope Boston College | Virtue and Human Flourishing in Light of Recent Psychology: A Theological Perspective |
| John Makransky Boston College | Confronting the Sin Out of Love for the Sinner. Fierce Compassion as a Force for Social Change |
| Hendrik Vase Frandsen Arhuis University, Copenhagen | Time – Culture- Metaphysics. The Late K.E. Logstrup |
| Derek Brown Graduate Student, Boston College | Toward a Theological-Aesthetic Critique of Suicide Bombing |
| Dan McKaughan Boston College | Action-Centered Faith, Doubt, Rationality: On the Conditions for the Epistemic and Practical Rationality of Acts of Faith |
| Emmanuel Falque Institut Catholique de Paris | Christianity and Immanence |
| Chris Hackett Australian Catholic University | Coordinates for a Philosophy of Religion |
| Joseph S. O’Leary Sophia University, Tokyo | The Self and the One According to Plotinus |
| Stephanie Rumpza Graduate Student, Boston College | Jean-Luc Marion and the Icon |
| Stephen Brown Boston College | Averroes as a Model for Christian Theology |
| Group Discussion of Stanislas Breton | ‘The word and the Cross’ I (led by Jeffrey Bloechl, Boston College) |
| Nancy Pineda-Madrid Boston College | The Problem of Evil from a Roycean Perspective |
| Group Discussion of Stanislas Breton | ‘The word and the Cross’ II (led by Jeffrey Bloechl, Boston College) |
| Cathal Doherty Boston College | The Universal Significance of Christ’s Individual Words of Forgiveness |
| Jeffrey Hanson Australian Catholic University | Words of Faith and Pledges of Love: Abraham’s ‘Total Presence’ in His Speech |
| Sarah Thomas Graduate Student, Boston College | Cyberspatiality and Being: A Phenomenological Analysis |
| Gary Gurtler Boston College | An Argument for God’s Existence in Plotinus’s ‘Enneads IV.5’ |
| Douglas Finn Boston College | Antigone, Hegel, and the Question of Tragedy in Christian Theology |
| Jeffrey Bloechl Boston College | The Principle of the World and the Word of Faith. Approaches to 1 Corinthians 7 |
| Arthur Cools University of Antwerp | Ethics and the Tragic between Levinas and Blanchot |
| Andrew Prevot Boston College | What Sort of Thinker is Jean-Louis Chretien? A Reflection on His Phenomenology of Response |
| Brian Robinette Boston College | Adventures in Mortality. A Theological Assessment of Hans Jonas’s Philosophical Biology |