Podcasts about morningside institute

In this talk at Living Well at the End of a World, James Hankins draws parallels between our contemporary anxieties about civilizational decline and the late medieval Renaissance period, specifically the 14th and 15th centuries, which also faced profound institutional crises. He highlights the humanist movement, spearheaded by Petrarch, as a historical response that sought societal reform by fostering virtue and wisdom in leaders through a renewed emphasis on classical learning. Hankins argues that the Renaissance represented a radical re-centering of civilization, advocating for a meritocratic leadership grounded in moral excellence and a commitment to community welfare.The Morningside Institute hosted a two-day conference on April 4–5, 2025. On its first day, the conference examined some of the radical changes that Western societies are undergoing. On the second day, we explored in greater detail historical examples of how communities have navigated periods of intense cultural change and even devastation. For more information about Living Well at the End of a World, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/living-well.

In his talk at Living Well at the End of a World, Bishop Erik Varden discusses the end of our “internal world”—the microcosm of human life—at the deathbed and the monastic venture to confront death and live well in the face of its inevitable appearance. Using the vita of Antony the Great by St. Athanasius as his exemplar par excellence of the monastic life, he discusses the creative subversion with which monasticism has repeatedly revitalized western civilization. He finally urges modern man toward the prayerful purpose, patient perseverance, and vicarious love that can reignite communal hope and purpose.The Morningside Institute hosted a two-day conference on April 4–5, 2025. On its first day, the conference examined some of the radical changes that Western societies are undergoing. On the second day, we explored in greater detail historical examples of how communities have navigated periods of intense cultural change and even devastation. For more information about Living Well at the End of a World, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/living-well.

In his new book Believe, NY Times correspondent Ross Douthat offers a blueprint for thinking one's way from doubt to belief. Douthat argues that religious belief makes sense of the order of the cosmos and our place within it, illuminates the mystery of consciousness, and explains the persistent reality of encounters with the supernatural. On Monday, March 3, at 6:30 PM, Columbia's Earl Hall Center for Religious Life and the Morningside Institute hosted Ross Douthat for a conversation with one of America's most respected commentators on religion and public life. The event was held in-person at Faculty House and was streamed online.For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

This lecture was given on January 25th, 2024, at the University of Florida. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the speaker: Nathaniel Peters is the Director of the Morningside Institute. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in linguistics, with a focus on French and Latin, his M.T.S. from the University of Notre Dame, and his Ph.D. in theology from Boston College. He has published articles and reviews on many topics in historical theology and ethics and serves as a contributing editor at Public Discourse.

Tradition describes courage, moderation, justice, and prudence as the cardinal virtues (a list going back to Plato) and faith, hope, and charity as the theological virtues (a list going back to Saint Paul). Can we conceive of hope as a virtue, as a good quality for people to have, without a theological framework — without any notion of salvation? On Monday, February 10, 2024, the Morningside Institute hosted Dhananjay Jagannathan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, for a discussion on the possibility of secular hope. The seminar also explored questions including: What types of despair might be damaging to our individual and social lives? Is hope simply another name for a sunny or optimistic disposition? Is hope compatible with looking squarely at the truth about the present and likely predictions about the future?For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

On Monday, October 9, the Morningside Institute and the Galileo Center at Columbia Law School hosted Joshua Katz (AEI) for the last lecture in our series Language Rights and Wrongs. This series explores the relationship between world and word, honing in on ancient texts, namely Homer, Plato, and the Bible.This evening's conversation was not about the Constitution of the United States per se but rather the things that interest comparative linguists when they read texts like Homer's Iliad. These peculiarities are related to larger and increasingly pressing issues of how to interpret words and phrases from decades, centuries, and millennia ago.For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Does language contain truth in itself? And whether or not it does, at what level are the words we use natural, and at what level are they a matter of convention? Plato's Cratylus provides the earliest in-depth discussion of these matters, and it turns out that we can learn something about our own linguistic problems today by considering this neglected dialogue.On Tuesday, October 3, the Morningside Institute and the Galileo Center at Columbia Law School hosted Joshua Katz (AEI) for his second lecture in our Fall 2023 series Language Rights and Wrongs.For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

This fall, the Morningside Institute and the Galileo Center at the Columbia Law School hosted Joshua Katz (AEI) for a three-part lecture series on the relationship between word and world. The series focused on ancient texts—namely, Homer, Plato, and the Bible—and what these reveal about the nature (or artificiality) of language. On Tuesday, September 26, Dr. Katz introduced the series and led a discussion on the relationship between language and creation in a number of ancient traditions, especially the Book of Genesis but also well beyond.For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

In his famous Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki writes, “In the Beginner's Mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.” These words have served as a guide for James Valentini during his time as a professor of Chemistry and then much-beloved dean of Columbia College. As he has developed it, the concept of beginner's mind encourages us to put aside the judgment of others as our guide and to use self-awareness and self-reflection to formulate our own assessments of the world. It reminds each of us to consider the possibility that we might be entirely wrong in an assessment about which we feel certain, and to temper our judgment of others who have made a different assessment.On September 27, 2023, the Morningside Institute and the Earl Hall Center for Religious Life hosted a conversation with Deantini, Szabolcs Marka (Physics), and Elaine Sisman (Music).For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Thomas Aquinas's ethical system is framed in terms of evaluating an individual's intentional actions, which may be good or bad depending on their conformity with the natural law. Can such a framework make sense of the notion that social structures and practices can also be just or unjust, as in the contemporary notion of structural racism? On Thursday, February 23, 2023, the Morningside Institute hosted the John and Jean Oesterle Associate Professor of Thomistic Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Therese Cory for an online lecture. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

We instinctively think of images as things we create, control, and consume. But in this lecture, Prof. Thomas Pfau (Duke) argued that our encounter with images and the visible world as a whole serves as a test of our spiritual and moral condition. Following a brief overview of his recent book on this subject, Prof. Pfau's lecture considered three images in some depth: the famous Pantocrator icon from Mt. Sinai monastery; a painting by Jan van Eyck; and a portrait by Paul Cézanne.On Wednesday, February 15, 2023, the Morningside Institute hosted Professor Thomas Pfau for an online lecture. Professor Pfau is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English at Duke University, with a secondary appointment in the Divinity School at Duke University. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Are some books “great” in a way others are not? Can a core curriculum represent all the members of a university community? What should students get out of their classes in the Core? How should we justify liberal education today? These questions shaped many universities' curricula, including Columbia's Core, and today are at the center of debates about the purpose of education and the university.On Friday, February 3, 2023, the Morningside Institute hosted a conversation between Roosevelt Montás (Columbia) and Zena Hitz (St. John's College), moderated by Emmanuelle Saada (Columbia). Zena Hitz is a tutor at St. John's College and the author of Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Roosevelt Montás directed Columbia's Center for the Core Curriculum for ten years and is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

As American politics descends into a battle of anger and hostility between two groups called "left" and "right," people increasingly ask: What is the essential difference between these two ideological groups? In The Myth of Left and Right, Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis provide the surprising answer: nothing. As the authors argue, there is no enduring philosophy, disposition, or essence uniting the various positions associated with the liberal and conservative ideologies of today. Far from being an eternal dividing line of American politics, the political spectrum came to the United States in the 1920s and, since then, left and right have evolved in so many unpredictable and even contradictory ways that there is currently nothing other than tribal loyalty holding together the many disparate positions that fly under the banners of "liberal" and "conservative." On Tuesday, January 24, 2023, the Morningside Institute and Elm Institute hosted Verlan Lewis (Harvard, Utah Valley University) and Hyrum Lewis (Brigham Young University-Idaho) to discuss the shortcomings of the political spectrum.

Many scholars have held that Christianity created a new kind of religious belief and devotion, unlike the ritualistic, legal, and cultural religious practice widespread throughout the Roman Empire. But in a new book, Jacob Mackey (Occidental) draws on cognitive theory to argue that, despite having little to do with faith or salvation, real belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices and helped create and maintain Rome's social reality. In a deep sense, no man could count as an augur and no act of animal slaughter as a successful offering to the gods, unless Romans collectively shared appropriate beliefs about these things. The Morningside Institute hosted Professor Jacob Mackey of Occidental College on November 1, 2022. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

In the past, a lawyer might have taken for granted, as one ABA report explained, that “one of the highest services the lawyer can render to society is to appear in court on behalf of client whose causes are in disfavor with the general public." But not today, when lawyers across the profession increasingly face boycotts, protests, and public shaming campaigns for zealously advocating on behalf of unpopular clients and causes. Are fundamental norms—including professional independence, commitment to service pro bono publico, access to justice, and the adversary system as a truth-seeking process—thereby under attack? Or is it appropriate that lawyers should be held to account in some way for the broader impact of their legal work?The Morningside Institute and the Columbia Law School Center on Law and Liberty hosted this panel with the Hon. Richard J. Sullivan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Professor Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School, and Erin E. Murphy, Esq., Partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Clement & Murphy, LLC on October 13, 2022. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Matthew Rose is a scholar of religion. He's currently Senior Fellow and Director of the Barry Center on the University and Intellectual Life — a project of the Morningside Institute — and he previously taught at Villanova. He's written for magazines such as First Things and The Weekly Standard, and his newest book is A World After Liberalism. It's an examination of five far-right thinkers, from Julius Evola to Sam Francis, who are proving increasingly influential in post-liberal conservatism in America.It's the first of several episodes in which I hope to explore more deeply the radical alternatives to liberal democracy being touted on the right. Think of it as a balance to my focus this past year on the illiberal alternatives being touted on the woke left. Get full access to The Weekly Dish at andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

In this talk, Prof. Veronica Ogle (Assumption University) helps us understand how Augustine sees the earthly city as parodying the city of God, a process that produces illusions and lies that entrap its inhabitants in a nihilistic dreamworld. She explores how Augustine's critique of the earthly city uncovers the self-love and lust for domination that drove Roman thought and history. But Augustine places his unmasking of Rome's injustice within a broader framework aimed at reorienting this self-love to a love of God. He argues that we can live in the political sphere without participating in the earthly city—as good neighbors whose purified loves make them better citizens.Quotes referred to during the lecture:"We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love, the earthly city was created by self-love reaching to the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self."Augustine, City of God 14.28"He refused to be subject to his Creator, and in his arrogance supposed that he wielded power as his own private possession and rejoiced in that power. And thus, he was both deceived and deceiving because no one can escape the power of the Omnipotent. He has refused to accept reality and in his arrogant pride presumes to counterfeit an unreality.Augustine, City of God 11.13“Pride is a perverted imitation of God. For Pride hates a fellowship of equality under God, and seeks to impose its own dominion on fellow men, in place of God's rule. This means that it hates the just peace of God and loves its own peace of injustice.”Augustine City of God, 19.12“I know how great is the effort needed to convince the proud of the power and excellence of humility, an excellence which makes it soar above all the summits of this world, which sway in their temporal instability, overtopping them all with an eminence not arrogated by human pride, but granted by divine grace.”Augustine, City of God 1.prVeronica Roberts Ogle is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Assumption University. This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on April 19, 2022. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

As our society continues to fracture, writers across the political spectrum have repeatedly invoked the classical concept of the common good. Thinkers such as Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon offered robust accounts of the common good in a pluralistic, democratic society. Yet frequently, today's invocations of the common good dodge questions about pluralism and pass over these accounts or reject them outright. Were these earlier thinkers naïve? Do their accounts still offer us valuable insights, or were they better suited to a time that has now passed? How can we genuinely promote the common good in a society with so much disagreement about what it is? Ross Douthat is a New York Times Opinion columnist. This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on February 24, 2022. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

On this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss dignity, its Christian roots, and whether secular liberalism can sustain it. Our special guest and returning guest is Nathaniel Peters. He is Contributing Editor of Public Discourse and Director of the Morningside Institute. Among the questions we will ask him are the following. Please feel free to suggest others!1. How do you define “human dignity”?2. You argue that Friedrich Nietzsche, unlike secular liberalism, offers at least a coherent alternative to the Christian view of dignity. How do you reach this conclusion? 3. Did classical Western civilization have a concept of human dignity?4. How does the Christian understanding of dignity emerge from the Old Testament?5. Is there a link between the Christian understanding of dignity and Kant's Enlightenment view of dignity?6. You cite St. Gregory of Nyssa as the first to articulate the incompatibility of Christianity with slavery. How does he do so?7. You cite the Byzantine emperor Theodosius, perhaps influenced by St. Basil, as first showing the incompatibility of Christianity with prostitution. What sort of argument does he make?8. Why was it left to Christians to invent shelters and hospitals for the poor?9. What reception has Christianity received from the Dalit caste?10. Alasdair MacIntyre has recently contended that dignity is a possibly dangerous concept. What do you make of his claim?

This talk was delivered on October 16, 2021 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Nathaniel Peters, Senior Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, is the Executive Director of the Morningside Institute and a lecturer at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in linguistics, with a focus on French and Latin, his M.T.S. from the University of Notre Dame, and his Ph.D. in the history of Christian thought and Christian ethics from Boston College. At Boston College, he taught courses in the department of theology and lectured in the Perspectives Program, BC's great books program. He is currently working on an English translation of letters of William of Saint-Thierry and has published articles and reviews in Religious Studies Review, America, Commonweal, First Things, and Plough Quarterly. A native of Edgartown, MA, he lives in Harlem with his wife and son.

It seems as though our cultural and moral debates in America and Europe take place between a secular side and a traditional, frequently religious, side. Secular liberalism is seen as consciously moving away from religious convictions of the past toward a more fair and objective viewpoint. But some scholars argue that the framework of secular liberalism is rooted in Judaism and Christianity and still operates with their metaphysical and ethical categories—albeit in an unacknowledged way. In this talk, Eric Nelson (Harvard) explores the theological framework of secular society and the ways in which liberal thinking is inescapably religious.Eric Nelson is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University. This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on November 4, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

African American literature has a rich tradition of both using and discarding the classics. In the 20th century, the Black feminist poet Audre Lorde argued that, “[t]he master's tools will never dismantle the master's house,” and Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, was inspired by Black Arts Movement poets to de-colonize her artistic practice systematically by eschewing poetic forms and modes of European origin. In this talk, Prof. Chiyuma Elliott (Berkeley) will explore a different pole on that creative continuum: contemporary poets (herself included) for whom classical authors are key touchstones and interlocutors. She will focus on several contemporary poems about peace and violence that allude to Homer's epics in meaningful ways, including Yusef Komunyakaa's “Latitudes,” Rowan Ricardo Phillips's “Even Homer Nods,” and her own Black Lives Matter poem “Dear Ilium”. Her core argument is that exploring the different ways these poems are in sustained conversation with the classics tells us something about how contemporary authors are imagining Black selfhood, American history, and what it means to belong in this nation and on this planet.Chiyuma Elliott is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on November 10, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

The problem of relativism has presented itself ever since Herodotus introduced his readers to the astounding variety of religious beliefs and moral judgements among human communities. Philosophers soon began to consider the proposition that there is no objective truth and falsity, right and wrong, but that all of these are products of different conventions and cannot apply beyond the contexts in which they originated. Indeed, relativism seems to be an intuitive response to the fact of cultural diversity. But it also seems to carry troubling implications for promoting justice, negotiating disagreements, and leading one's life with purpose and integrity. In this series we will consider relativism in relation to two questions. First, is relativism ultimately the reality of the human condition, or are there realities and moral norms that we can discern as objectively true? And second, is there a way to maintain robust philosophical, religious, and moral convictions in a way that navigates between relativism and ideology?Contemporary defenders of moral relativism often cite anthropological literature for support. They contend that cultural differences among the practices of human groups are often a source of fundamental and therefore irresolvable moral conflict. In this seminar, Prof. Michele Moody-Adams (Columbia) will draw on her book Fieldwork in Familiar Places to respond to these claims.This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on November 8, 2021. The lecture was briefly interrupted due to connectivity issues, and the interruptions are evident in the recording. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you will enjoy Prof. Moody-Adams' wonderful lecture nonetheless.

In August 410 Alaric, King of the Goths, entered Rome with his army, and proceeded to carry out a rather impressive version of a “sack”: murder, mayhem, theft, and desecration of churches and consecrated virgins. St. Augustine, then the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa, soon received a large number of refugees, both pagan and Christian. These refugees grumbled that Christianity failed to protect the City. After all, what are gods good for if they cannot guarantee the temporal safety and prosperity of Rome? Four months later, Augustine preached a sermon outlining the true lessons of this catastrophe. Within the next year he wrote the first of twenty-two books of the City of God, which is a blueprint for the main moral and spiritual lessons of disaster. Indeed, Book I represents one of the most profound themes of the entire work: Human history is a trial and test of the just and the unjust. The trial is best understood in a comparison of two heroes, one biblical and the other worldly. Namely, Job and Cato.Francis Russell Hittinger is the Warren Chair of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa. He is on the governing council of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He has been on the faculties of Catholic University of America and Fordham University, and has served as a visiting professor at Princeton University and New York University. This lecture was given at the Morningside Institute on October 27, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

The Ancient Greek Sophists kickstarted moral philosophy in the West with the provocative idea of relativism: that there is no objective right and wrong. Plato formulated and refuted the relativism of the Sophist Protagoras in his dialogue Theatetus, and this engagement remains arguably the most interesting discussion of relativism in the history of philosophy. If relativism is demonstrably false, why is it still interesting? Is there still truth that we can take away from it?Professor Katja Vogt (Columbia), a specialist in ancient philosophy and ethics, led a seminar on Plato's discussion of Protagorean relativism for the Morningside Institute on October 13, 2021. Join us for the rest of our seminars on relativism this semester here: https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/wrestling-with-relativism.

It is time to rethink justice. Dominant in the West is the classic definition of justice as the constant will to render another his due. In the modern world, this definition has come to mean rights and retribution. However, based on his experience as an activist in Kashmir and the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Prof. Daniel Philpott (Notre Dame) finds this conception inadequate for reconciliation after large-scale violence and denials of dignity. By contrast, the Bible offers a broader concept of justice based on right relationship. This framework does not reject rights or punishment but includes obligations and virtues that extend beyond duty: mercy, generosity, and forgiveness. In this lecture, Prof. Philpott explores the biblical understanding of justice and the way it can bear fruit in contemporary society, including reducing our current polarization and addressing historical wounds such as racism.Daniel Philpott is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. This lecture was given at the Morningside Institute on October 6, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Popular theories like game theory try to explain why people find it rational to accept risk when making decisions, especially economic ones. But as thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Pascal argued, accepting risk factors into the greatest questions of life, such as whether or not to profess faith in a particular religious creed or philosophy. Join us for a lecture from Prof. Lara Buchak (Princeton) on how our understanding of rationality and risk can help us understand what faith is and when it might be rational to have faith.Lara Buchak is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at Princeton University.This lecture was given at the Morningside Institute on May 7, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Much has been written recently about Arendt's political observation that totalitarian masses would "believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true," but her views on space exploration and astronomy have attracted less attention, even if she ranks "the invention of the telescope" alongside the Protestant Reformation among the decisive events of the modern era. As entrepreneurs and nations alike race toward the Moon, Mars, and beyond, what moral and political questions surrounding space exploration might emerge? How does Arendt's unease with our "conquest of space" invite us to reconsider the achievements of Galileo, Descartes, and other early scientific thinkers?This is a Living the Core seminar with Charles McNamara, who received his PhD in Classics from Columbia in 2016 and his AB from Harvard in 2007. He is an instructor of Contemporary Civilization at Columbia, and received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2016. This seminar took place at the Morningside Institute on April 8, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Must public actors sacrifice their principles in order to advance their desired political ends? Realists, who argue that the messiness of political life makes moral purity impossible, accuse moralists of having their heads in the clouds. But Hume reminds us that one need not ignore political reality in order to promote a humane political culture.This is a Living the Core seminar with Aaron Zubia, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow with The Tocqueville Program in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. In 2019-20, he was a Thomas W. Smith Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. This seminar took place at the Morningside Institute on April 5, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Religious thinkers and contemporary scientists have seen acedia as a fundamental problem, as it opposes the goal of rest in relationship to the divine and enjoying the goodness of human relationships. Drawing upon Evagrius, Aquinas, and contemporary psychology, Prof. Chris Jones (Barry University) will offer advice on how to identify acedia in the distractions of contemporary life and offers practices to correct its harmful influence.Chris Jones is Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Barry University. This lecture was given to the Morningside Institute on March 15, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

You may watch this lecture along with Dr. Sahner's PowerPoint presentation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/96CmUeeNLlsHow did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play (or not play) in this process? This lecture explores how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy. Christian Sahner is associate professor of Islamic history and a fellow of St. Cross College at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World and, most recently, an editor of Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook.This lecture was given to the Morningside Institute on March 18, 2021. The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org​.

This week (March 17) on The Open Door we discuss the peril, promise, and possibility of secularism. Our special guest is Nathaniel Peters. He is Contributing Editor of Public Discourse and Director of the Morningside Institute.1. Could you begin by telling us a bit about your background2. We're regular readers of Public Discourse. How did it come about? Where is it headed?3. During the lead-up to the presidential election, our colleague Charlie Camosy made the case for the American Solidarity Party in Public Discourse. How did this come about, and how was it received?4. Could you sketch for us your recent criticism of Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley's new book It Is Right and Just?5. To its credit, Public Discourse welcomed Hahn and McGinley's reply to your criticism. Have the three of you have found common ground? What disagreements remain?6. How has the thinking of St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI helped shaped your recent exchange, perhaps on both sides?7. Can anyone blame Ambrose Bierce's dismissal of conservatives as those who are enamored of old evils and liberals as those who want to introduce new evils? And were he here, might he dismiss progressives as intent on going somewhere chiefly by supplanting argument with memes?

Many wonder what will come of the deep divisions in American society. What lessons do the Civil War and other historic periods of conflict offer for our own divided time? How can we use history well to understand the present? Join us for a conversation with two of America's greatest historians, Allen Guelzo (Princeton) and James Hankins (Harvard), who will reflect on these conversations in light of the Civil War and the Italian Renaissance.Allen C. Guelzo is the Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and Director of the James Madison Program's Initiative in Politics and Statesmanship. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction era.James Hankins is Professor of History at Harvard University and the Founder and General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library. He writes on Renaissance intellectual history and has most recently authored Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy. This virtual conversation was held at the Morningside Institute on February 25, 2021. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org. This event is co-sponsored by the Abigail Adams Institute and the Elm Institute.

You may watch this lecture along with Dr. Snead's PowerPoint presentation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uab1SpYgAVIThe natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. This individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the most vulnerable among us must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond. In this lecture, O. Carter Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.O. Carter Snead is Professor of Law, Director of de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, and Concurrent Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. You may find his recently published book, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, via this link: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987722This lecture was given to the Morningside Institute on February 24, 2021. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

In 1930 the Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître published a revolutionary view of the cosmos as one with a finite age and a definite beginning. But how he got there is as interesting a story as the idea of the Big Bang itself, and reveals just how profoundly this one man of faith and science set the stage for modern cosmology, the study of the universe's origin and evolution.Jonathan I. Lunine, David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and chair of the department of Astronomy at Cornell University, tells the story of this extraordinary adventure. This lecture was given at the Morningside Institute on December 2, 2020.

The translation of Avicenna and other writers of the Islamic Golden Age into Latin was one of the most formative events in the history of Western Philosophy. Professor Therese Cory (Notre Dame) provides a glimpse of the “detective story” of how knowledge was transmitted from Muslim scholars to the European scholastics. She also discusses (24:48) how one particular idea from Averroes played an important part in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and continues to influence Christian theology today. As it turns out, the familiar claim that medieval scholastic philosophy was simply a rehash of Aristotle's cannot be further from the truth.This lecture was presented at the Morningside Institute on October 27, 2020.

This is the third lecture in a four-part series by Prof. William Carroll (Oxford) titled “Evolution, Cosmology, and Creation: From Darwin and Hawking to Aquinas”. This lecture explores whether it is possible to have an idea of God as providential (i.e. as someone whose Will is never frustrated) in the context of an evolving universe of contingency and chance. These lectures were presented from September 23 to October 14, 2020 at the Morningside Institute.

This is the final lecture in a four-part series by Prof. William Carroll (Oxford) titled “Evolution, Cosmology, and Creation: From Darwin and Hawking to Aquinas”. This lecture explores recent developments in cosmology and the problems that would follow from identifying the concept of creation with that of a beginning. These lectures were presented from September 23 to October 14, 2020 at the Morningside Institute.

This is the first lecture in a four-part series by Prof. William Carroll (Oxford) titled “Evolution, Cosmology, and Creation: From Darwin and Hawking to Aquinas”. This lecture explores the challenges that evolutionary biology offers to the traditional doctrine of creation, and whether there can be a metaphysical view of creation distinct from the natural-scientific view. This series was presented from September 23 to October 14, 2020 at the Morningside Institute.

This is the second lecture in a four-part series by Prof. William Carroll (Oxford) titled “Evolution, Cosmology, and Creation: From Darwin and Hawking to Aquinas”. This lecture explores whether the autonomy of natural processes is compatible with God being the complete cause of all that is. These lectures are presented from September 23 to October 14, 2020 at the Morningside Institute.

On this best of LA Catholic Morning, we featured our interview with Jeff Polet speaking about his article on cutting the cost of over reaction. Steve Mosher shared his article on the secret records of the Wuhan biolabs, and Nathaniel Peterson talked about the Morningside Institute.

Jeff Polet discussed his article, "Counting the cost of over reaction. Steve Mosher shared about the secret records of the Wuhan biolabs. Nathaniel Peters talked about the mission of the Morningside Institute.

This presentation by Professor Thomas Pavel (University of Chicago) was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.Professor Pavel is the Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, the Committee on Social Thought, and Fundamentals at the University of Chicago.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This presentation by Sr. Ann Astell, Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This presentation by Spencer Lee Lenfield, PhD candidate in English at Yale University, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

The handout can be found here: http://bit.ly/36mEs This lecture by Lauren Kopajtic, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This presentation by Dhananjay Jagannathan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This presentation by William Gonch, PhD candidate in English at University of Maryland, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This lecture by Prof. Paul Elie (Georgetown) was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

This presentation by Catherine Enwright, PhD candidate in English at Boston College, was given as part of "The Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University on 4-5 October 2019.The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute. The program included lectures by Paul Elie (Georgetown), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham), Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia), Sr. Ann Astell ( Notre Dame), and Thomas Pavel (Chicago).For more information about this and other events, please visit MorningsideInstitute.org.

The handout for this lecture is available at https://thomisticinstitute.org/hand-out-for-dr-dhananjay-jagannathan.A lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018.For more information on other events by the Morningside Institute, check out our website: MorningsideInstitute.org

A lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018.

The handout for this lecture is available at thomisticinstitute.org/hand-out-for-…jennifer-freyA lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018.

Hear the lecture by Dr. Eva Brann (St. John's College) given at Morningside Institute's conference “The Great Books at 100,” in celebration of the centennial of Columbia University's Contemporary Civilization course.

Peter W. Wood interviews Nathaniel Peters of the Morningside Institute, an organization that introduces students to cultural staples of New York City.

The handout for this lecture is available here: https://tinyurl.com/yc56e2g6 A lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018. For more information on other Thomistic Institute events, check out our website: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/

The handout for this lecture is available here: https://tinyurl.com/y7b4m4rz A lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018. For more information on other Thomistic Institute events, check out our website: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/

A lecture given during "Desire and the Good Life: Reflections on the Aristotelian Tradition," a conference cosponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Morningside Institute, and the Philosophy Department of Columbia University at Columbia University in New York City. October 12-13, 2018. For more information on other Thomistic Institute events, check out our website: https://thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/