The Center for Ethics and Culture is co-hosting a colloquium "On Secularization" at the Law School of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, May 12–13, 2017. This colloquium marks the beginning of a new scholarly research collaboration on Christianity and the West organized in collaboration with the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy), and the Centre d’études du Saulchoir (France).

"This project gathers researchers from across the U.S. and Europe, including senior scholars from Harvard University, the Sorbonne, Oxford University, the University of Notre Dame, and numerous other institutions," said Ryan Madison, associate director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. "We will engage in collaborative research through conferences, publications, and faculty exchange, while providing opportunities for students at the graduate and undergraduate levels."

The two-day colloquium will feature keynote lectures by James Hankins (Harvard), Pierre Manent (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales EHESS) and Rémi Brague (Sorbonne), as well as presentations from notable political scientists, legal theorists, and scholars including Patrick Deneen (Notre Dame), Mauro Magatti (Sacro Cuore), Dan Philpott (Notre Dame), Adrian Vermeule (Harvard), Michael Moreland (Villanova), Thierry Rambaud (Sorbonne), Giulio De Ligio (EHESS), and Daniel Mahoney (Assumption College).

"Western political, economic and social life is growing progressively estranged from the Christian heritage that built Europe and remains its inescapable reference point," said Gladden Pappin, Political Theory Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Culture. "This colloquium will explore the ways that Christianity has shaped the West, reorienting the standard approaches to contemporary challenges, and showing how old problems have returned in a new light."

Originally chartered in 1200, the Sorbonne (officially the "University of Paris") was considered the second-oldest university in Europe. Currently organized as an amalgam of seven alliances comprised of 13 autonomous universities, its faculty over the centuries have included St. Bonaventure, St. Albertus Magnus, Irène Joliot-Curie, Bl. Frédéric Ozanam, Henri Poincaré, and Étienne Gilson. Among its influential alumni are St. Thomas Aquinas, Honoré de Balzac, Simone de Beauvoir, Pope Benedict XVI, Marie and Pierre Curie, Desiderius Erasmus, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Susan Sontag, Elie Wiesel, and St. Francis Xavier.

For more information on the colloquium, contact Gladden Pappin at gpappin@nd.edu.

The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is the leading center for scholarly reflection within the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. The Center is committed to sharing the richness of this tradition through teaching, research, and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines. For more information about the Center for Ethics and Culture, contact communications specialist Ken Hallenius at 574-631-3192 or khallenius@nd.edu.