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Fall Conference

2020 Notre Dame Fall Conference Cancelled

It is with a heavy heart that the de Nicola Center announces the cancellation of our 2020 Fall Conference, originally scheduled to take place November 12–14 at the University of Notre Dame.

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the University has taken a number of precautions to protect the health and safety of the Notre Dame community, implementing restrictions on travel, large gatherings, and external guests. These policies ultimately preclude our hosting the Fall Conference in any meaningful way; certainly, they would make impossible the exchange with scholars and students from across the country and around the world, as well as the community-building with friends old and new, that are highlights of the conference every year.

Though we cannot gather in person this fall, the de Nicola Center plans to host an online event in the spirit of the Fall Conference the first week of December 2020. More details regarding that event will be forthcoming; be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to receive updates about those developments.

In hindsight, it feels fortuitous that our 2019 Fall Conference was organized around the theme of friendship, for it is certainly the memory of that community and the abiding friendship shared with each of you that sustain us through this difficult time apart. We will continue to treasure those friendships and find new ways to nourish them until we can be together once more.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is committed to sharing the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research, and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines. Our Fall Conference is the most important academic forum for fruitful discourse and exchange among the world's leading Catholic thinkers and those from other traditions, and is the largest annual interdisciplinary event at Notre Dame. Recent past speakers include Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Mary Ann Glendon, Rémi Brague, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and Jean Bethke Elshtain.

Past Conferences

Find information regarding past conferences and lecture videos at the links below.