Related: The Future of the Humanities Project
Over the course of the 2023-2024 academic year, the Future of the Humanities Project is sponsoring a series of lectures on cultural encounters in collaboration with the Georgetown Humanities Initiative and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.
In a world increasingly divided along national, religious, and cultural lines, Pope Francis has called for a "culture of encounter" that promotes communication and builds trust while acknowledging the inevitability of conflict. Cultural encounters that entail the recognition of others in their otherness are a contemporary imperative with a rich thematic history in literature and the humanities. This series will bring leading scholars together, across disciplines, to explore themes of encounter both in classic literary works and in contemporary cultural debates. The hour-long virtual events will include a Q&A with the audience. Following the launch event, all subsequent events will take place at 11:00 a.m. ET/4:00 p.m. UK.
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The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum, c. fifth century CE) are perhaps the most widely read patristic texts throughout history. They have been constantly translated and retranslated…
A Month in the Country (1980) by J. L. Carr is a short novel that describes the re-emergence of a shell-shocked World War I veteran through his engagement with a small community. The focus of Pope…
Virginia Woolf famously called George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-1872) "one of the few English novels written for grownup people." One of the aspects of the novel that makes it "grownup" is the…
The Book of Mormon is considered to be scripture by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, the use of the Book of Mormon in actual missionary work is contrasted with its…
The Old English poem Beowulf, dating from the late seventh or early eighth century, offers a textual encounter with the dynamic culture of early medieval England. Highlighting the theology of the…
In recent years, people interested in Christian social thought have begun to express reservations about the welfare state. Concerns have come from the left (for example, Frank Field and Maurice…
