Friendship: Quests for Character, Community, and Truth
Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
Thursday, October 25-Saturday, October 27, 2007
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Program Description
Because we so naturally esteem friendship, Augustine wrote, our conscience condemns us if we do not meet friendship with friendship. When we do, we open ourselves to transforming possibilities—personal, civic, and even spiritual.
Though the highest form of friendship might be a school of virtue, a source of solidarity in bearing life's burdens, and (following Aquinas) an avenue to Christian charity and friendship with God, friendship is increasingly difficult to realize within our culture, especially given the challenges posed by radical individualism, mobility, and political, racial, and religious division. Technologies like the Internet change how we view friendship: we are drawn more to 'Facebook' encounters than face-to-face relationships. Yet the quests for character, community, and truth that are made possible through friendship invite perceptive critiques of contemporary society as well as creative proposals for renewed forms of personal and civic life.
Featured Speakers
LIZ CARMICHAEL is fellow and tutor in theology at St John's College, Oxford, where she also serves as college chaplain. Trained as a medical doctor in Oxford and London, she gained a first-class BA in theology and wrote her doctorate at Oxford on Christian love as friendship-love. She is the author of Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love (2004). She has been decorated by Queen Elizabeth for peacemaking work with the National Peace Accord during South Africa's transition to democracy.
C. STEPHEN EVANS is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. His published works have focused on Kierkegaard, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of psychology. He is the author of fourteen books, including Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (2004) and Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (2006). He is a past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers.
PAUL J. GRIFFITHS is the Arthur J. Schmitt Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His scholarly interests focus on philosophy of religion and theology, and he has published on both Buddhist and Christian thought. Among his recent publications are Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (1999); Problems of Religious Diversity (2001); Philosophy of Religion: A Reader (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro, 2003); and Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (2004).
THOMAS HIBBS is dean of the Honors College and Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture at Baylor University. His research interests include medieval philosophy, contemporary virtue ethics, and philosophy and popular culture. His most recent books include Aquinas, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Religion: Metaphysics and Practice (2007) and Arts of Darkness: American Noir and the Quest for Redemption (2007). He also writes widely on film, books, and higher education.
ALAN JACOBS is professor of English at Wheaton College, where he has taught since 1984. A frequent contributor to Books & Culture, his work primarily addresses the intersection of literature and Christian theology. His books include A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love (2001); Shaming the Devil: Essays in Truthtelling (2004); and The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis (2005).
DOMINIC MANGANIELLO is professor of English literature at the University of Ottawa, where he has taught since 1979. He is the author of Joyce's Politics (1980) and T. S. Eliot and Dante (1989) and co-author of Rethinking the Future of the University (1998). His recent work has focused on a group of writers that includes, among others, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, the Inklings (especially Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams), and their return to the Middle Ages as a quest to locate the roots of Western culture.
MARY NICHOLS is professor and chair of political science at Baylor University. Her primary research interests include the history of political thought, especially Greek political theory, and politics and literature. Her books include Socrates and the Political Community: An Ancient Debate (1987); Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle's Politics (1998); and Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films of Woody Allen (1998).
CHARLES PINCHES is professor and chair of theology and religious studies at the University of Scranton, where he also co-directs the Center for Ethics Studies. He teaches and writes primarily in the area of Christian ethics and is the author of four books, including (with Stanley Hauerwas) Christians Among the Virtues (1997) and A Gathering of Memories: Family, Nation, and Church in a Forgetful World (2006).
ROBERT D. PUTNAM is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy, and past president of the American Political Science Association, he received the Skytte Prize in 2006, one of the world's highest accolades for a political scientist. He has written a dozen books, translated into seventeen languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000).
ROBERT C. ROBERTS is Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Baylor University. A specialist in virtue ethics, virtue epistemology, and Kierkegaard, he is the author of eight books, including Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (2003); Spiritual Emotions: Reflections in Christian Ethics (2007); and (with Jay Wood) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (2007). He is currently working on a sequel to his 2003 book on emotions.
NANCY SHERMAN is University Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown Law School. She has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has served as the inaugural holder of the distinguished chair in ethics at the United States Naval Academy. She is the author of The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (1989); Making A Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (1997); and Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind (2005).
PAUL J. WADELL is professor of religious studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. A specialist on the ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, his work has focused on friendship, the role of the virtues in the moral life, theology and literature, and the mission of the church in contemporary society. He is the author of seven books, including Friendship and the Moral Life (1989); Becoming Friends (2002); and Happiness and the Christian Moral Life (2007).
CAROLINNE WHITE is faculty research fellow of classics at the University of Oxford and associate editor of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. The author of the acclaimed Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (1992), she recently has completed a translation of the Rule of St. Benedict that will be published by Penguin Classics. She is currently working on a collection of writings about Roman Christian women.
Schedule
Thursday, October 25
1:30—3:00 p.m.
Opening Remarks -Barfield Drawing Room
Plenary Session
Friendship and the Moral Life
- Robert Baird, Baylor University: session chair
- Thomas Hibbs, Baylor University
- Robert C. Roberts, Baylor University
3:30—5:00 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions
Love, Impartiality, and Obligation in Friendship -Claypool Room
- Alexander Pruss, Baylor University: session chair
- Kevin Timpe, University of San Diego, and Melissa Strahm, Georgia State University: The Demands of Friendship
- Eric Silverman, Saint Louis University: David Velleman's Model for Reconciling Impartiality, Love, and Friendship
- Neil Delaney, Georgetown University: Love, Motivation, Obligation
Literary Models of Friendship in Amis and Amiloun, Emma, and Moby-Dick -Beckham Room
- Peaches Henry, Baylor University: session chair
- David Strong, University of Texas at Tyler: Getting Medieval on Friendship: Literary and Philosophical Approaches
- Amber Hobbs Dyer, University of Dallas: Emma and Knightley: A Friendship of Phroenesis
- David William Turnage, University of Dallas: A Mortal Wound to Free Will: Friendship and the Political Order in Moby-Dick
How Friendship Might Transform Where and How We Live: The Environment and Mediating Structures -Houston Room
- Michael Foley, Baylor University: session chair
- Karl Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park University: The Friend, the Polis and the Ecosystem: Moving from Civic to Environmental Friendship
- Christopher Miller, Judson College: Friendships in Third Places: An Architecture of Mediating Structures
Friendship as a Foundation for Teaching and Scholarship -Baines Room
- Wm. Loyd Allen, Mercer University: session chair
- Susan Hanssen, University of Dallas: Friendship as the Basis and End of Education in The Education of Henry Adams
- Rob Prenkert and Timothy Paul Erdel, Bethel College: Can Friendship Be Taught in the Classroom? Learning from Literature and Life
- Brian J. Braman, Boston College: Scholarship as Friendship with God: A Personal Enquiry
What Friendship Can and Cannot Do -Fentress Room
- Matthew P. Lomanno, University of St. Thomas: session chair
- Jonathan Sands-Wise, Baylor University: Good Friends: Friendship and the Benefits of Virtue
- James E. Bruce, Baylor University: Aristotle on the Threat of Friendship
- Damon Martin, University of Dayton: Why Friendship Is Not Enough
Becoming Friends of God -Cowden Room
- Barry Harvey, Baylor University: session chair
- Joseph A. Cirincione, Rockhurst University: Friendship: The Ignatian Quest to Love as God Loves
- Jennifer Constantine-Jackson, Regis College, Toronto: Thomas Aquinas on Prayer and Friendship in the Summa Theologiae
- Scott B. Key, California Baptist University: Zizioulas and Levinas: Toward an Ontology of Relation
5:00—6:00 p.m.
Break
6:00—7:30 p.m.
Reception Dinner -Barfield Drawing Room
7:30—9:00 p.m.
Plenary Session -Bennett Auditorium
- Charles Tolbert, Baylor University: Introduction
- Robert D. Putnam, Harvard University: Faith and Friendship: Initial Findings from a New National Survey
Friday, October 26
8:30—10:00 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions
Speaking Truthfully and Seeking the Good: Friendships and the Pursuit of Genuine Community -Gregory Room
- Chris Callaway, St. Joseph's College of Maine: session chair
- Jeremy Neill, Saint Louis University: The Public Square and Intellectually Divided Friendships
- Dennis Sansom, Samford University: Friendship, Language, and a Critique of Society
- Gregory R. Beabout, Saint Louis University: Is It Unfriendly to Talk about Religion in Public? Lessons from Eugene Garver and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Friendship in the Monastic Tradition -Cowden Room
- Duane Bruce, Saint Anselm College: session chair
- John R. Fortin, Saint Anselm College: Friendship in the Rule of Saint Benedict
- Wm. Loyd Allen, Mercer University: Friendship as Spiritual Formation: Aelred of Rievaulx as Accompagnateur
- Joseph Keating, The Catholic University of America: Unum de Pluribus: Unions in Aelred of Rievaulx's Spiritual Friendship
Imagining Vulnerability and Dependence through Friendship -Baines Room
- William Rehg, Saint Louis University: session chair
- Matthew P. Lomanno, University of St. Thomas: Doctor and Patient as Useful Friends
- Sarah Moses, Boston College: Friendship and the Elderly: Transforming Our Notion of Moral Responsibility in an Aging Society
- Arthur J. Spring, College of Saint Benedict/St. John's University: Friendship in Jean Vanier's l'Arche Communities: A Study in the Life of Relationship Before and Beyond the Burgeoning of Reason, and of the Creative Force Resident in Vulnerability, Dependence, and Weakness
Historical Reflections on Friendship -Fentress Room
- John von Heyking, University of Lethbridge: session chair
- Cecil Chabot, University of Ottawa: Competence, Culture, Friendship, and the Quest for Historical Understanding
- Jeffrey Polet, Hope College: Friendship and Fraternity in the American Founding
Friendship and the Family in Philosophy, Literature, and Film -Claypool Room
- Christopher Hansen, Baylor University: session chair
- Patrick Cain, Baylor University: Aristotle on Friendship and the Family
- Steve Block, Baylor Univeristy: Women, the Family, and the American Soul in Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country
- Andrew Clayton, Baylor University: A Consideration of Modern Character and Friendship in Lost in Translation
Friendship and the Moral Life in Aquinas -Barfield Drawing Room
- Peter Candler, Baylor University: session chair
- Matthew D. Walz, Thomas Aquinas College: Aquinas's "Kingdom of Friends": Love of Friendship as a Source of Freedom
- Patricia Murphy, St. Augustine's Seminary of Toronto: Aquinas' Teaching on "Acedia" ("Sloth") - and What "Sloth" Can Teach Us about the Christian Moral Life Today
Themes of Friendship and Race in Literature -Beckham Room
- Maire Mullins, Pepperdine University: session chair
- Claire Valente, Whitman College: Tolkien, Friendship, and Race
- Anna Floerke Scheid, Duquesne University: Together in
the Landscape of Oppression: Friendship, Conscience, and
Conversion in the Novels of Andre Brink
Christian Friendships of Reconciliation and Sacrifice -Houston Room
- Timothy Paul Erdel, Bethel College: session chair
- Sr. Marcianne Kappes, St. Gregory's University: Halifax & Portal: A Story of the Friendship in Ecumenical Dialogue
- Ronald Wells, Maryville College: A Friendship for Peace and Reconciliation in Ireland: The Rt. Rev. Ken Newell and Fr. Gerry Reynolds
- Patrick Mahaney Clark, University of Notre Dame: "Laying Down One's Life for One's Friends": A Critical Comparison of the Jonestown Suicides and the Ugandan Martyrs
10:00—10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 a.m.—12:00 p.m.
Plenary Session -Barfield Drawing Room
Classical Friendship
- Robert Kruschwitz, Baylor University: session chair
- Mary Nichols, Baylor University
- Nancy Sherman, Georgetown University
12:00—1:30 p.m.
Lunch -Cashion Banquet Room
1:30—3:00 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions
Perspectives on Friendship from Psychology -Claypool Room
- Allison Chestnut, William Carey University: session chair
- Daniela Cambetas, Northwestern College: Friends Who Pray Together Stay Together? Exploring Predictors of Friendship and Faith Intimacy among College Females
- Alexander Beaujean, Baylor University: The Non-shared Environment: A Behavior Genetic Perspective on Friendship
Theological Reflections on Friendship: Stein, Weil, and Lewis -Houston Room
- Amy Antoninka, Baylor University: session chair
- Sr. Madeliene Grace, University of St. Thomas: A Fruition of Friendships: The Journey of Edith Stein (1892-1942) in Her Search for Truth
- Scott Geis, Christian Brothers University: An Equality Made of Harmony: A Theological Reflection on Friendship and Affliction in the Writings of Simone Weil
- Francis J. Caponi, Villanova University: Unfit for Society: Friendship and Divinization in C. S. Lewis
Friendship in the Confessions -Beckham Room
- Don Thorsen, Azusa Pacific University: session chair
- Michael A. Cantrell, Baylor University: Augustine's Friends in Low Places
- Bret Saunders, University of Dallas: To Be a Friend of God: Friendship, Love, and the Psychology of Conversion in Augustine's Confessions
- Glenn Gentry, Columbia International University: Friendship in the Confessions
Plato and Murdoch on Friendship and the Moral Life -Baines Room
- Anne-Marie Bowery, Baylor University: session chair
- John B. Howell, III, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: Plato's Lysis: Philosophical Friendship in Argument and Action
- Sheryl Overmyer, Duke University: On the Good of Bad Friends: Aristotle Meets Iris Murdoch and Jesus Christ
- Scott Moore, Baylor University: Forgiveness and Friendship in the Thought of Iris Murdoch
Literary Themes of Friendship: Forster, Cather, and Whitman -Cowden Room
- Stuart Rosenbaum, Baylor University: session chair
- Lynne Hinojosa, Baylor University: Race and the Possibilities of Friendship in the Colonial Context: A Critical Analysis of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India
- Sarah Cheney Watson, East Texas Baptist University: Willa Cather's Classical View of Friendship in Death Comes for the Archbishop
- Maire Mullins, Pepperdine University: Friendship in Walt Whitman's Civil War Writings
How Friendship Might Transform Contemporary Society -Fentress Room
- David Thunder, The Witherspoon Institute: session chair
- Christopher Scaperlanda, University of Texas Law School: Law and Friendship: Toward Virtue and the Common Good
- Andrew Litschi, Yale Divinity School: The Privatization of Friendship within Modern America
- William Rehg, Saint Louis University: Friendship and Solidarity: Two Levels of Dependency in Christian Practice
Friendship and the Practices of the Church -Barfield Drawing Room
- David J. Wood, Fund for Theological Education: session chair
- Keith D. Ray II, Furman University: Friendship as Integral in Practices of Christian Initiation
- Keith L. Johnson, Princeton Theological Seminary: The Ecclesiological Determination of Friendship: A Question of Vocation
- Bryan Kirby, Christ Church Episcopal School, and Anne McGuire, St. Gregory's University: No Longer Strangers: Ecumenical Friendship in Worship
3:30—5:00 p.m.
Plenary Session -Barfield Drawing Room
Friendship with God
- Darin Davis, Baylor University: session chair
- Charles Pinches, University of Scranton
- Liz Carmichael, University of Oxford
- Paul J. Wadell, St. Norbert College
5:00—6:00 p.m.
Break
6:00—7:30 p.m.
Dinner -Cashion Banquet Room
7:30—9:00 p.m.
Plenary Session -Cashion Banquet Room
- J. Randall O'Brien, Baylor University: Provost's Welcome
- Michael Beaty, Baylor University: Introduction
- Paul J. Griffiths, University of Illinois at Chicago: Befriending the Religious Other: Why Love Is Easier Than Friendship
Saturday, October 27
8:30—10:00 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions
Undergraduate Panel (Sponsored by Baylor's Crane Scholars Program) -Fentress Room
- Katharine Boswell, Baylor University: session chair
- Gary Guadagnolo, Baylor University: The Life and Death of a Friendship: Arkady Kirsanov and Yevgeny Bazarov in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons
- Brittany Gentry, Houghton College: The Historical Self and Loyalty in Friendship
Greek and Christian Reflections on Friendship -Cowden Room
- Patrick Cain, Baylor University: session chair
- William Mathie, Brock University: God and the Friendship of Philosophers
- Christi Hemati, Baylor University: Augustine and Aristotle on Friendship
- Kimberly A. Bresler, St. Joseph's University (Philadelphia): The Augustinian Art and Practice of Christian Friendship in Superior-Inferior Relations
Models of Friendship in Life, Literature, and Popular Culture -Houston Room
- John R. Fortin, Saint Anselm College: session chair
- Duane Bruce, Saint Anselm College: Thinking About and Living Out Friendship: The Example of John Henry Newman
- David H. Calhoun, Gonzaga University: Magnanimous Mouse, Teller of Truth, Loyal Friend: The Aristotelian Virtue of Reepicheep in C. S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- Thomas W. Richardson and Allison Chestnut, William Carey University: Finding Friendship in Popular Culture and in the Company of Women: Reading beyond Stereotypes in Designing Women and Steel Magnolias
The Contours of Christian Friendship -Baines Room
- Michael Scaperlanda, University of Oklahoma College of Law: session chair
- Paul Martens, Baylor University: Friendship, Preference, and Protestant Paranoia: Or, Why Is Agape Insufficient?
- Cynthia R. Nielsen, University of Dallas: A Glimpse at Christocentric Friendship in the Heartbeat of Hans Urs von Balthasar
- Shawn Floyd, Malone College: Friendship and the Preferential Nature of Divine Love
Friendship as a Source of Dialogue, Forgiveness, and Christian Community -Gregory Room
- Dennis Sansom, Samford University: session chair
- Klaus Issler, Biola University: Valuing Close Friendship Dyads: The Missing Ingredient to Deepening Christian Community
- Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University: Forgiveness Among Friends: Some Suggestions on How to 'Keep No Record of Wrongs'
- A. Christian van Gorder, Baylor University:
"Preferring Your Brother": Al-Ghazali's On the
Duties of Brotherhood - A Source-Book for Considerations
to Improve Muslim-Christian Interactions
Christian Friends of Uncommon Faith -Beckham Room
- Keith D. Ray II, Furman University: session chair
- Guido de Graaff, University of Oxford: Friendship as Common Judgment
- Derek C. Hatch, University of Dayton: Friendship and Difference: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jean Vanier
- Thomas W. Jodziewicz, University of Dallas: Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin: Friends
Friendship in Modern Philosophy -Claypool Room
- Douglas Kries, Gonzaga University: session chair
- Keegan Callanan, Duke University: Rousseau's "Sweet Illusion": Friendship, Virtue, and Happiness
- Margaret Tate, Baylor University: Melancholy and Friendship
- Robert Miner, Baylor University: Nietzsche on Friendship
10:00—10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 a.m.—12:00 p.m.
Plenary Session
The Distinctives of Christian Friendship -Barfield Drawing Room
- Douglas Henry, Baylor University: session chair
- Carolinne White, University of Oxford
- C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University
12:00—1:30 p.m.
Lunch -Cashion Banquet Room
1:30—3:00 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions
Jane Austen and Aristotelian Friendship -Barfield Drawing Room
- Margaret Tate, Baylor University: session chair
- Douglas Kries, Gonzaga University: Arist