June 7, 2021
At its annual convention on June 3, the College Theology Society announced that Ryan G. Duns, S.J., assistant professor of theology at Marquette University, received the 2021 CTS Best Book Award for Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age: Desmond and the Quest for God (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020). The award committee called Duns’s book a “work of high […]
May 12, 2021
Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century presents a comprehensive analysis of Weil’s interdisciplinary thought, focusing especially on the depth of its challenge to contemporary philosophical and religious studies. In a world where little is seen to have real meaning, Eric O. Springsted presents a critique of the unfocused nature of postmodern philosophy and argues that Weil’s […]
March 10, 2021
Eric O. Springsted is the co-founder of the American Weil Society and served as its president for thirty-three years. After a career as a teacher, scholar, and pastor, he is retired and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is the author and editor of a dozen previous books, including Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings (University […]
November 18, 2020
In Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living (October 2020), Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn engages both general readers and scholars on the topic of well-being. She examines the reappearance of ancient philosophical thought in contemporary American culture, probing whether new stirrings of Gnosticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and Platonism present […]
November 4, 2020
We recently had the opportunity to ask David Walsh a few questions about his new book, The Priority of the Person: Political, Philosophical, and Historical Discoveries, which was published by the University of Notre Dame Press in August 2020 as part of the The Beginning and the Beyond of Politics series. Walsh is professor of […]
October 21, 2020
In The Priority of the Person (August 2020), world-class philosopher David Walsh advances the argument set forth in his highly original philosophic meditation Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being (2015), that “person” is the central category of modern political thought and philosophy. From “Chapter Sixteen: Hope Does Not Disappoint“ Whether the political realm preserves the […]
October 12, 2020
Despite the flood of self-help guides and our current therapeutic culture, feelings of alienation and spiritual longing continue to grip modern society. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, whose earlier book Race Experts was reviewed by the New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post, offers a fresh solution: a return to classic philosophy and the cultivation of an inner life. In Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the […]
October 7, 2020
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is a professor of history and senior research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, Syracuse University. Her work focuses on ideas and their intricacy, inner-workings, and importance in the lives of individuals and society, past and present. In addition to modern and contemporary American social, cultural, and intellectual history, she has broader […]
October 5, 2020
Decline and death are some of the most unsettling aspects of human experience. Across time, philosophy, religion, and civic cultures have helped people prepare for aging and dying “well;” however, this no longer happens. One need only consider the many controversies that frame aging as a problem to be solved—from anti-aging interventions to assisted suicide—to […]
September 30, 2020
Joseph E. Davis and Paul Scherz are the co-editors of The Evening of Life: The Challenges of Aging and Dying Well (September 2020). The Evening of Life provides an interdisciplinary examination of the challenges of aging and dying well and calls for a re-envisioning of cultural concepts, practices, and virtues that embraces decline, dependency, and finitude rather […]
