St. Augustine in the Spring

Lecture Series

About our Lecture Series

St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences hosts three lecture series to enrich our vibrant intellectual culture and celebrate our diverse community of students and scholars. 

The Peter P. and Margaret A. D’Angelo Chair in the Humanities at St. John’s University, established in 2007, draws high-profile, multi- and cross-disciplinary visiting professors to St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — the University’s oldest division — for a semester of teaching and scholarly exchange. Read more about the D’Angelo Chair here.

The Catholic Lecture Series was created to further St. John’s strategic objective of visibly embedding its Catholic and Vincentian mission in the academic life of the University. 

Past Lectures

Fall 2019
Finding Common Ground in a Polarized World
Julie Hanlon Rubio, Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Fall 2018
Building a Bridge: Reaching Out to LGBT Catholics
Rev. James Martin, SJ, Jesuit priest, author, and editor at large at America magazine.

Fall 2017
Empathy and the Evolution of Compassion: From Deep History to Infused Virtue
Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond, Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing, University of Notre Dame

Fall 2016
Compassion Matters: Compassion as a Disposition, a Virtue, a Way of Being, and a Way of Acting, and Its Contribution to Creating the Common Good
Dr. M. Shawn Copeland, Professor of Theology at Boston College

Fall 2015
Who Is My Brother? Who Is My Sister? Catholic Teaching and the Emergent Global Common Good
Most Rev. Robert W. McElroy, Bishop of San Diego

Spring 2015
Is God's Charity Broad Enough for Bears?
Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Professor of Theology, Fordham University

Spring 2014
Catholic Teaching on the Issue of Immigration
Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn

Spring 2013
Civic Kinship: A Christian Ethic of Immigration
Kristin Heyer, Ph.D., Bernard J. Hanley Professor of Religious Studies, Santa Clara University

Spring 2012
The Council of Trent and Michelangelo's “Last Judgment”
Rev. John O’Malley, S.J., Ph.D., Department of Theology, Georgetown University

Fall 2010
Religion and Politics: What’s Right, What’s Wrong, What’s Prudent
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., Ph.D., Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University

Spring 2010
The Sacramental Principle and The Catholic University
Rev. Michael J. Himes, Ph.D., Theology Department, Boston College

Spring 2009
Writing Hopkins
Paul Mariani, Ph.D., University Professor of English, Boston College
Ron Hansen, Ph.D., Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Professor, Santa Clara University

Each semester, the Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholar-teachers from among the faculty to discuss a topic from a variety of perspectives. The event welcomes all members of the University community.

Spring 2019
"Modern and Modernity"

Fall 2017
“Thoreau and the Art of Living”: Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Henry David Thoreau

Spring 2017
The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

Fall 2016
Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia