Visiting Lecturers

Each semester, the college invites scholars, poets, priests, philosophers, artists, musicians, and cultural leaders to join the conversation that animates our collegiate culture. These visits usually take the form of Oxford-style Formal Hall dinners, where the guest shares a meal with faculty and staff and delivers a lecture, complemented by questions and answers, further conversation, and much-anticipated desserts.

The following list offers a selection of the speakers, seminars, and their topics:

Lecture/Seminar	Speaker	Affiliation
Poetry: Dynamite for the Imagination	Anthony Esolen	Professor and Writer-in-Residence, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts
The Catholic Intellectual Tradition: Illustrated and Updated	Rev. John Piderit, S.J.	President of the Catholic Education Institute
What is Catholic Political Philosophy?	Mark Shiffman	Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities, Villanova University
Catholic Conversion and the Classics: The Spiritual Aeneid of Ronald Knox (1888-1957)	Matthew McGowan	Associate Professor of Classics, Fordham University
The Art of the Dramatic Monologue	Anthony Esolen	Professor and Writer-in-Residence, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts
Dante, the Seeker of Liberty	Anthony Esolen	Professor and Writer-in-Residence, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts
Does Dante’s Paradise Exist?	Robert Royal	Founder and President of the Faith and Reason Institute, Editor-in-Chief of The Catholic Thing
Saving Virgil: Dante and the Unity of the West	James Matthew Wilson	Professor of Humanities and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing, University of St. Thomas
Finding the Good in our Liquid Narcissistic World	Angela Franks	Professor of Theology, St. John’s Seminary in Boston
Henri de Lubac and the Christian Mystery of Nature and Grace	Nicholas Healy	Associate Professor of Philosophy and Culture, Pontifical John Paul II Institute
Hamlet’s Virgilian Lot and the Suffering Hero	Angela Marks	Associate Professor of English and Speech, St. John’s University
The Boethius Option	Anthony Esolen	Professor and Writer-in-Residence, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts
Capitalism and the Good Life	Danilo Petranovich	Director, Abigail Adams Institute

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Friday Night Lecture, February 7th: “The Boethius Option” by Anthony Esolen

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Friday Night Lecture: The Curse and the Gift of Tragedy

Dr. Bainard Cowan, professor of literature and Cowan Chair in Humanities at the University of Dallas, presented this academic year’s inaugural Friday Night Lecture, “The Curse and the Gift of Tragedy,” on Friday, September 13. In his presentation, Dr. Cowan discussed the core elements of tragedy, drawing on Aristotle’s discussion in The Poetics, and then...

Fr. Brian Dunkle of Boston College speaks at Northeast Catholic College

Friday Night Lecture: The Eyes of Faith in Early Christian Literature

On Friday, February 8, the college hosted Fr. Brian Dunkle, S.J., as part of its Friday Night Lecture series. Fr. Dunkle, who is the Assistant Professor of Historical Theology in the School of Ministry and Theology at Boston College, lectured on “The Eyes of Faith in Early Christian Literature.” Drawing on the writings of the Church Fathers,...

Friday Night Lecture: “The Poem Knows: Writing in Form and Meter”

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Friday Night Lecture Series: “What Do the Wise Know & How Do They Know It?:Wisdom Among the Speculative Virtues in Aquinas”

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