The Catholic Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings | Prof. Paul Gondreau

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Kevin L. Flannery, S.J., is professor of the history of ancient philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and serves as a consultor of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. His main publications include Ways into the Logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias (Brill, 1995) and Acts Amid Precepts: the Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theory (Catholic University of America Press; T & T Clark, 2001).

This lecture was given on October 25th, 2024, at Virginia Military Institute.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Trabbic is an associate professor of philosophy at Ave Maria University in Florida where he has taught since 2006. His areas of interest include metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, the relationship between religion and politics, Aquinas, Heidegger, and postmodern philosophy. He has published articles on these topics in various academic and popular journals.

This lecture was given on March 3rd, 2024, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.

What exactly is just war theory? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Joseph Capizzi about the criteria for just war, the complexity of forgiveness in war, and post-war reconciliation and healing.You can watch this interview on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/TlumHTSOFjU.About the speaker: Joseph E. Capizzi is Dean of Theology at the Catholic University of America. He teaches in the areas of social and political theology, with special interests in issues in peace and war, citizenship, political authority, and Augustinian theology. He has written, lectured, and published widely on just war theory, bioethics, the history of moral theology, and political liberalism.

This lecture was given on November 8th, 2023, at Ave Maria UniversityFor more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

This lecture was given on November 13th, 2023, at East Carolina University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker: Farr Curlin is the Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities and CoDirector of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke University. Dr. Curlin’s ethics scholarship takes up moral questions that are raised by religion associated differences in physicians’ practices. He is an active palliative medicine physician and holds appointments in both the School of Medicine and the Divinity School, where he is working with colleagues to develop a new interdisciplinary community of scholarship and training focused on the intersection of theology, medicine, and culture.

This lecture was given on January 9th, 2024, at North Carolina State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.

This lecture was given on April 5th, 2024, at University of South Carolina.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker: Paul Gondreau is professor of theology at Providence College, where he has taught for 26 years. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation on Christ's full humanity (Christ's human passions/emotions) under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), Christian anthropology, the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, the biblical vision of Aquinas' theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. 

This lecture was given on October 19th, 2023, at Georgetown University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee. She has been active in her religious community’s teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and assists with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation, serving as Associate Professor of Theology at Aquinas College. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper (L’Osservatore Romano), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, her favorite projects have been serving as editor-in-chief of her Congregation’s book, Praying as a Family, directing a television series of the same title with EWTN, co-directing the documentary Undivided Heart, and serving as the creator and founding Director of the University of Dallas Studies in Catholic Faith & Culture Program.

This lecture was given on February 20th, 2024, at Regent University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He loves his five grandchildren, four children, one wife, one cat, and one God.  He has written over 100 books including: Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Christianity for Modern Pagans, and Fundamentals of the Faith.