The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Jacques Maritain Center jointly hosted thirty professors and graduate students from Central and South America for two weeks of interdisciplinary research and scholarly collaboration, July 14–27, 2025. Sponsored by the Nueva Cultura project at the Universidad de los Andes (UANDES) in Chile, the group visits Notre Dame for two weeks twice a year to conduct research in the Hesburgh Libraries, present their research and receive feedback from one another, network with Notre Dame faculty, and give and receive mentorship in academic scholarship.

“The de Nicola Center is proud to facilitate this fruitful collaboration with our friends from Central and South America,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the John J. Cavanaugh Professor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame. “Under the leadership of Professor García-Huidobro, Nueva Cultura helps form the next generation of scholars in the Global South, and it has been a gift to the de Nicola Center to partner with them and support their work and research.”

“Nueva Cultura is a program that seeks to prepare people capable of actively intervening in the public space in the various countries of Latin America,” said Joaquín García-Huidobro, professor of philosophy at UANDES and co-director of the Nueva Cultura program. “Over the years, we have given scholarships to 63 students from Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Chile. Their mentalities and political positions are very different, but we tell them that they are going to participate in a program that draws on the cultural heritage we have received from three cities: from Athens, the capacity of reason to order our lives and society; from Rome, the value of institutions and the idea that true freedom only exists under the rule of law; and from Jerusalem, the idea of human dignity in the image of a unique and personal God.”

Since the group's first visit in 2013, more than 150 students and professors have participated in the annual research retreat at Notre Dame, producing bestselling books, academic scholarship, and public interventions while in residence at the de Nicola Center. During their visit this month, scholars worked on such wide-ranging subjects as Thomas Hobbes and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, the dignity of the child in utero, the philosophical concept of the state of nature, Chilean feminism's critique of European fascism in the 1930s, and more.

“Hosting the Nueva Cultura cohort for their semiannual visit is a highlight of our summer and winter breaks at the de Nicola Center,” said Justin Petrisek, research and publications program manager. “The wide-ranging interdisciplinary research that they pursue while in residence with the Center reflects our own mission to bring the breadth of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition to bear on the most important questions in contemporary thought and culture.”

“At the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, we have found people who understand and support us,” said García-Huidobro. “They think not only of North America, but of the world. Without their help, it would be very difficult for us to carry out the Nueva Cultura project. The University of Notre Dame has had a decisive impact on my academic work and that of many others and is a great help in carrying out what I consider my fundamental task: to help give my country and Latin America the professors it needs, people who have a passion for serving others with their intelligence.”

*Story updated on August 7, 2025, clarifying details on research topics explored during the visit.