2016: You Are Beauty
Each year on the campus of Notre Dame, the Center hosts its interdisciplinary Fall Conference, the most important venue for truly fruitful dialogue and exchange among the world's leading Catholic thinkers, as well as those from other traditions, on pressing and vexed questions of ethics, culture, and public policy. The Conference annually attracts more than six hundred participants and features more than one hundred paper presentations in disciplines ranging from philosophy, theology, political theory, and law to history, economics, science, and the arts.
Our 17th annual Fall Conference, "You are Beauty: Exploring the Catholic Imagination," considered “aesthetic contemplation sublimated in faith” (“Letter to Artists,” Pope St. John Paul II), exploring the relationship between the imagination, beauty, truth, and religion in a variety of contexts, particularly the arts, music, architecture, literature, philosophy, theology, political theory, and the sciences. More than 1,000 participants engaged in conversation and reflection during the three days of the conference, making it the largest Fall Conference to date.
Featured speakers at the year's conference included:
- Etsuro Sotoo, sculptor of the Nativity Façade of the Sagrada Família Basilica, Barcelona, Spain
- Alasdair MacIntyre, Permanent Senior Distinguished Research Fellow, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
- Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, and Permanent Senior Distinguished Research Fellow, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
- Sir Roger Scruton, philosopher of aesthetics and author of more than 40 books
- Elizabeth Lev, art historian, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy
- Monsignor Timothy Verdon, Director, Diocesan Office of Sacred Art and Church Cultural Heritage and the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy
Full conference schedule available here (PDF).
Featured Presentations (via our YouTube Channel)
Thursday, November 10 |
|
|---|---|
| 8:00 p.m. |
Josef Pieper Keynote Lecture: “Beauty Is Part of God’s Creation” Esturo Sotoo (Lead Sculptor, Basilica de la Sagrada Família) Chair: O. Carter Snead (Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture) Conference Center Auditorium |
Friday, November 11 |
|
| 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. |
Beauty, the First Transcendental |
| 1:30-2:45 p.m. |
Poetic Imaginations, Catholic and Otherwise Alasdair MacIntyre (Senior Distinguished Research Fellow, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture) Chair: James Hankins (Harvard University) Conference Center Auditorium |
| 3:15-4:30 p.m. |
Words Beyond Words: The Flash of the Infinite in the Poems of Patrick Kavanagh |
| 8:00 p.m. |
The Gifts of the Magi: The Catholic Imagination and Birth of the Modern Museum Elizabeth Lev (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas) Chair: O. Carter Snead (Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture) Conference Center Auditorium |
Saturday, November 12 |
|
| 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. |
Thrones, Rings, and the Catholic Imagination: What George R.R. Martin Couldn’t Steal |
| 1:30-2:45 p.m. |
Tasting, Relishing, and the Meaning of Wine |
| 3:15-4:30 p.m. |
Imagining Moral Dignity: Christian Art and Physical Beauty |
| 8:00 p.m. |
De Nicola Family Lecture: "Wallace Stevens, Beauty, and the Catholic Imagination" |
Past Conferences
Find information regarding past conferences and lecture videos at the links below.
- 2016: You Are Beauty
- 2015: For Freedom Set Free
- 2014: Responding to the Cry of the Poor
- 2013: The Body and Human Identity
- 2012: Exploring the Many Facets of Justice
- 2011: Radical Emancipation
- 2010: Younger Than Sin
- 2009: The Summons of Freedom
- 2008: The Family
- 2007: Dialogue of Cultures
- 2006: Modernity
- 2005: Joy in the Truth
- 2004: Epiphanies of Beauty
- 2003: Formation and Renewal
- 2002: From Death to Life
- 2001: A Culture of Life
- 2000: A Culture of Death