Ethics and Culture Cast

By Notre Dame de Nicola Center for Ethics and CultureSociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Christianity Education

Ethics and Culture Cast episodes

February 07, 2019Episode 24: Elizabeth Lev
Elizabeth Lev is an American-born art historian who has, as she calls it, "the good fortune to live and work in Rome." She teaches Renaissance and Baroque Art at Duquesne University’s Italian campus. She has taught and lectured in numerous venues in Ireland, Italy, the US and Australia, including an address at the United Nations in New York, and a TED talk representing the Vatican Museums. She works as Vatican Analyst for NBC and has been featured on The Today Show, Nightline and Sixty Minutes, among other programs. Her books include "The Tigress of Forlì: The Remarkable Story of Caterina Riario Sforza de’Medici" (2011), "Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches" (2013) with George Weigel, "A Body for Glory: Theology of the Body in the Papal Collections" (2014) with José Granados, and her newest book, "How Catholic Art Saved the Faith: The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in Counter-Reformation Art" (2018). Lev studied art history at the University of Chicago, and completed her graduate work at the University of Bologna.
Special Guest: Elizabeth Lev.
Links:
Elizabeth Lev's Homepage
— Elizabeth Lev is an American-born art historian with the good fortune to live and work in Rome. Life in the “Eternal City” allows her the perfect environment to pursue her many passions. For on an average day, one can find Elizabeth working on her latest article or book, preparing for one of her worldwide speaking engagements, touring visitors through the treasures of Rome, or using her skills as a sommelier to find the perfect wine to pair with dinner.
TED Talk: The unheard story of the Sistine Chapel
— The Sistine Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings on earth — but there's a lot you probably don't know about it. In this tour-de-force talk, art historian Elizabeth Lev guides us across the famous building's ceiling and Michelangelo's vital depiction of traditional stories.
ND Fall Conference 2016 Keynote: "The Gifts of the Magi: The Catholic Imagination and Birth of the Modern Museum"
— Presentation given at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's 17th Annual Fall Conference, "You Are Beauty: Exploring the Catholic Imagination." Elizabeth Lev is professor of art history at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and is a Permanent Research Fellow of the NDCEC.
Guido Reni: St. Matthew and the Angel
— Painted between 1635 and 1640, located in the Pinacoteca Vaticana (Vatican Museum picture gallery).
Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (with George Weigel)
— In Roman Pilgrimage, bestselling theologian and papal biographer George Weigel, art historian Elizabeth Lev, and photographer Stephen Weigel lead readers through this unique religious and aesthetic journey with magnificent photographs and revealing commentaries on the pilgrimage’s liturgies, art, and architecture. Through reflections on each day’s readings about faith and doubt, heroism and weakness, self-examination and conversion, sin and grace, Rome’s familiar sites take on a new resonance. And along that same historical path, typically unexplored treasures-artifacts of ancient history and hidden artistic wonders-appear in their original luster, revealing new dimensions of one of the world’s most intriguing and multi-layered cities.
How Catholic Art Saved the Faith
— "How Catholic Art Saved the Faith" tells the story of the creation and successes of a vibrant, visual-arts SWAT team whose war cry could have been “art for Faith’s sake!” Over the years, it included Michelangelo, of course, and, among other great artists, the edgy Caravaggio, the graceful Guido Reni, the technically perfect Annibale Carracci, the colorful Barocci, the theatrical Bernini, and the passionate Artemisia Gentileschi. Each of these creative souls, despite their own interior struggles, was a key player in this magnificent, generations-long project: the affirmation through beauty of the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church.
Theme Music: "I Dunno" by grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque
31 min
January 24, 2019Episode 23: Francis J. Beckwith
Francis J. Beckwith is a philosopher who publishes and teaches in the areas of religion, jurisprudence, politics, and ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at Baylor University. He is a longtime friend of the de Nicola Center, and joined us in Houston as we presented a mini version of our Vita Institute pro-life workshop for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. In our conversation we talked about some of the philosophical arguments surrounding the abortion debate.
Special Guest: Francis J. Beckwith.
Links:
Francis Beckwith website
— You have arrived at the home page of Francis J. Beckwith, a philosopher who publishes and teaches in the areas of religion, jurisprudence, politics, and ethics.
Defending Life: A moral and legal case against abortion choice
— Defending Life is the most comprehensive defense of the prolife position on abortion ever published. It is sophisticated, but still accessible to the ordinary citizen. Without high-pitched rhetoric or appeals to religion, the author offers a careful and respectful case for why the prolife view of human life is correct. He responds to the strongest prochoice arguments found in law, science, philosophy, politics, and the media. He explains and critiques Roe v. Wade, and he explains why virtually all the popular prochoice arguments fail.
Theme Song: "I Dunno" by grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque
18 min
September 20, 2018Episode 22: Matthew Mehan
Matthew Mehan is a teacher at The Heights School in Washington, D.C. and The Worsham Teaching Fellow of Hillsdale College’s Washington DC Allan P. Kirby, Jr., Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a reader at the Folger Library. Matthew has been awarded the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellowship as well as two fellowships from the Earhart Foundation. His first book is Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals from TAN Books.
Special Guest: Matthew Mehan.
Links:
Matthew Mehan's Faculty Profile
— Matthew Mehan began teaching at The Heights in 2000. He teaches History of Western Thought and the Sophomore U.S. History and American Literature “AmeriCore.”
Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals
— Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals, or "M5," is a book of children's poetry beautifully complemented by a series of paintings that tell the story of the Dally and the Blug, their journey and friendship in a struggle against sadness. Readers encounter twenty-six mythical mammals along the way—witnessing good, evil, courage, humor, sadness, endurance, and hope—one poem at a time.
Las Vaquitas Lullaby (from M5)
— Nestled among the paintings in M5 are a variety of beautiful but endangered or extinct animal species. Some of the creatures featured are based upon very real animals of the past that no longer exist. But one mythical mammal, La Vaquita, appearing in the Letter "V," is alive today! Happily, it is a very cute and very small wild porpoise; its babies are the size of a loaf of bread (which is maddeningly cute when you think about it). But sadly, the Vaquita is an extremely endangered wild porpoise, with only roughly ninety left in the wild. M5 author Matthew Mehan also wrote a “Las Vaquitas Lullaby” to help raise awareness which can be heard here.
Theme Music: "I Dunno" by grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
24 min
September 13, 2018Episode 21: Pete Hlabse
Pete Hlabse oversees the CEC's student programs, including the Sorin Fellows Program which offers intellectual, spiritual, and human formation opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students at Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College, and Holy Cross College. The program has grown under his leadership to encompass more than 200 student fellows, offering exclusive events, internships, and research funding across the disciplines and in every area of study at the university.
Special Guest: Pete Hlabse.
Links:
Sorin Fellows Program
— The Center for Ethics and Culture’s Sorin Fellows Program is a community of students at the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College inspired by the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition and committed to pursuing the integration of their social, intellectual, and spiritual values in the context of their collegiate experience and in the discernment of their vocations.
CEC Staff
— Meet the staff of the Center for Ethics and Culture.
Theme Music: "I Dunno" by grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
24 min
May 17, 2018Episode 20: James Hankins
James Hankins is a professor of Renaissance intellectual history at Harvard University. He is the Founder and General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library from Harvard University Press, a member of the British Academy, and is the author or editor of over twenty volumes and more than eighty articles, essays and book chapters. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Center in the Spring 2018 semester, where he worked on a monograph entitled, The Virtue Politics of the Italian Humanists.
Special Guest: James Hankins.
Links:
I Tatti Renaissance Library
— The I Tatti Renaissance Library is the only series that makes available to a broad readership the major literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works of the Italian Renaissance written in Latin. Each volume provides a reliable Latin text together with an accurate, readable English translation on facing pages, accompanied by an editor’s introduction, notes on the text, brief bibliography, and index. Presenting current scholarship in an attractive and convenient format, The I Tatti Renaissance Library aims to make this essential literature accessible to students and scholars in a wide variety of disciplines as well as to general readers.
Previous Episodes of Ethics and Culture Cast
— Ethics and Culture Cast features lively conversations with professors, fellows, scholars, and friends of the Center for Ethics and Culture. Episodes are released every other Thursday during the academic year.
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
34 min
May 10, 2018Episode 19: Rémi Brague
In this blockbuster episode, we welcome CEC Acting Director Patrick Deneen into the interviewer's chair for a conversation with philosopher Remi Brague, professor emeritus of Arabic and religious philosophy at the Sorbonne and Romano Guardini chair of philosophy (emeritus) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Professor Brague is the author of many books, including his masterwork trilogy consisting of "The Wisdom of the World: The Human Experience of the Universe in Western Thought" (2004), "The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea" (2007), and the concluding volume to released in October 2018 as part of the Center's book series "Catholic Ideas for a Secular World" with the title, "The Kingdom of Man: The Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project".
Special Guests: Patrick Deneen and Rémi Brague.
Links:
The Kingdom of Man: Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project
— Was humanity created, or do humans create themselves? In this eagerly awaited English translation of Le Règne de l’homme, the last volume of Rémi Brague’s trilogy on the philosophical development of anthropology in the West, Brague argues that with the dawn of the Enlightenment, Western societies rejected the transcendence of the past and looked instead to the progress fostered by the early modern present and the future. As scientific advances drained the cosmos of literal mystery, humanity increasingly devalued the theophilosophical mystery of being in favor of omniscience over one’s own existence. Brague narrates the intellectual disappearance of the natural order, replaced by a universal chaos upon which only humanity can impose order; he cites the vivid histories of the nation-state, economic evolution into capitalism, and technology as the tools of this new dominion, taken up voluntarily by humans for their own end rather than accepted from the deity for a divine purpose.
Book Series: Catholic Ideas for a Secular World
— The purpose of this interdisciplinary series is to feature authors from around the world who will expand the influence of Catholic thought on the most important conversations in academia and the public square. The series is “Catholic” in the sense that the books will emphasize and engage the enduring themes of human dignity and flourishing, the common good, truth, beauty, justice, and freedom in ways that reflect and deepen principles affirmed by the Catholic Church for millennia. It is not limited to Catholic authors or even works that explicitly take Catholic principles as a point of departure. Its books are intended to demonstrate the diversity and enhance the relevance of these enduring themes and principles in numerous subjects, ranging from the arts and humanities to the sciences.
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
27 min
May 03, 2018Episode 18: Fr. William R. Dailey, C.S.C.
In this episode, we sit down with Holy Cross Fr. William R. Dailey. Fr. Bill is the Thomas More Fellow at the CEC, and the Director of the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason in Dublin, Ireland. We chat about how he got involved with the CEC, about his work in Ireland, and about the educational mission of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
Special Guest: Fr. William R. Dailey, C.S.C..
Links:
Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason
— The organizing vision for the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith & Reason is to create a space, a community really, in which a lively and intellectually rigorous engagement of faith and culture will occur in a spirit of civil engagement with modernity inspired by the example of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, who built the Church that is our home. We hope through beautiful liturgy, inspiring preaching, and planned lectures and concerts to show that the faith in general and the Catholic faith in particular remain vital lenses for seeing all of human reality with clarity. We hope to build a community of informed and inquiring believers who are able to seek the truth with confidence and vigor, to speak the truth in love, and to integrate faith into their worldview, their work, and their engagement with culture.
CEC Permanent Research Fellows
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
25 min
April 16, 2018Episode 17: Katherine Smith
n this episode, we sit down with Katherine Smith, an undergraduate Sorin Fellow spending her Spring 2018 semester in Rome, Italy. We chat about her experiences in the Eternal City, her internship at the Pontifical Academy for Life, and what being a Sorin Fellow has meant to her. We recorded this conversation in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, also known as Chiesa Nuova, the "new church" that St. Philip Neri and his Oratorians started building in 1575.
In respect for the sacred space of the church, we recorded the conversation with our voices barely above a whisper.
Special Guest: Katherine Smith.
Links:
Sorin Fellows Program
— The Center for Ethics and Culture’s Sorin Fellows Program provides Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition and examine the many ways they can be brought to bear on pressing ethical issues in culture and public policy today.
Angelicum (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas)
— The Angelicum offers university education where faith and reason work together. It forms students as virtuous leaders, capable of evangelization and promoting integral human development. Illuminating the present by the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas, students, professors, and staff share in Dominican study, prayer, community and preaching.
Pontifical Academy for Life
Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova)
— In the heart of historic Rome, the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, known as the Chiesa Nuova, the legacy of the life and work of St. Philip Neri, welcomes you.
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque
13 min
April 12, 2018Episode 16: Richard Doerflinger
Richard M. Doerflinger retired in 2016 after 36 years of service to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, finishing as the associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. In that role he was involved in every single life issue, including embryo research, abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia, at the very highest level in federal and state governments. In 2011, he became the first recipient of the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, and he continues to serve as a Vita Institute Fellow of the Center for Ethics and Culture, and writes opinion columns in Catholic newspapers across the nation, among other things in a busy retirement.
Special Guest: Richard Doerflinger.
Links:
"A More Human Society" - Doerflinger's columns at Today's Catholic
— Richard Doerflinger retired from the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after 36 years. He is now retired and living in Washington state where he writes this syndicated column.
CEC Public Policy Fellows
— The Center for Ethics and Culture projects and amplifies Notre Dame’s voice into the public square on the most important public policy debates concerning human dignity and the common good. The Center’s director, Professor of Law Carter Snead, and the Center’s affiliated Public Policy Fellows provide:
• Legislative testimony before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures on urgent and vital issues, including abortion, euthanasia, and the HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate.
• Advice and counsel to elected and appointed local and federal officials through policy briefings, Supreme Court amicus briefs, and white papers.
• Media commentary through press interviews, op-eds, and public statements.
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque
24 min
April 05, 2018Episode 15: D. C. Schindler
In this episode, we sit down with D. C. Schindler, an associate professor of metaphysics and anthropology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and author of "Freedom From Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty", the newest volume in the Center's book series "Catholic Ideas for a Secular World" with the University of Notre Dame Press.
Special Guest: D. C. Schindler.
Links:
Freedom From Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty by D. C. Schindler
— It is commonly observed that behind many of the political and cultural issues that we face today lies an impoverished conception of freedom, which, according to D. C. Schindler, we have inherited from the classical liberal tradition without a sufficient awareness of its implications. Freedom from Reality presents a critique of the deceptive and ultimately self-subverting character of the modern notion of freedom, retrieving an alternative view through a new interpretation of the ancient tradition. While many have critiqued the inadequacy of identifying freedom with arbitrary choice, this book seeks to penetrate to the metaphysical roots of the modern conception by going back, through an etymological study, to the original sense of freedom.
Author's Roundtable Discussion (YouTube)
— A discussion about "Freedom From Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty" (http://undpress.nd.edu/books/P03373) with author D. C. Schindler (John Paul II Institute), Peter Simpson (CUNY), Michael Moreland (Villanova Law), and Adam Seagrave (U. Missouri). Introduced by Patrick Deneen, Acting Director of the ND Center for Ethics and Culture.
Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes
— I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque
30 min

About Ethics and Culture Cast

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Lively conversations with professors, fellows, scholars, and friends of the University of Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. The Center is committed to sharing the richness of the…