2016 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
Thursday, October 27-Saturday, October 29

Plenary Speakers

James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. He is the author of eight books, three edited volumes, and a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews all variously concerned with the problem of meaning and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life. His research findings have been presented to audiences throughout the world. He also has been a consultant to the White House, the Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Commission on Civic Renewal. Notable among his books are The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (2000), Is There A Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life (with Alan Wolfe, 2006) and To Change the World (2010).

Candace Vogler is David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. From 2000–2007, she served as co-director of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities. Her research interests include virtue ethics, social and political philosophy, cultural studies, and philosophy and literature. In 2015, she received a major Templeton Foundation grant for her project, "Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life." The project brings together philosophers, social scientists, and religious thinkers to examine the role of self-transcendence and self-transcendent goods in meaningful lives. Her books include John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape: An Essay in Moral Psychology (2001), a co-edited volume The Critical Limits of Embodiment: Reflections on Disability Criticism (2001), and Reasonably Vicious (2002). She presently is writing a book on the philosophy of G.E.M. Anscombe.

John Haldane is J. Newton Rayzor, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University. Prior to this he served as Professor of Moral Philosophy at University of St. Andrews and for twenty-five years directed its Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Chairman of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, London. In 2005, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen and was appointed as a councilor to the Pontifical Council on Culture. He is a regular contributor to a number of British journals and newspapers, as well as PBS and BBC radio and television programs. In his books, which include An Intelligent Person's Guide to Religion (2003), Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical (2004), Seeking Meaning and Making Sense (2008), Practical Philosophy: Ethics, Society and Culture (2009), and Reasonable Faith (2010), Haldane seeks to demonstrate that religion and theology offer profound and unique contributions to understanding issues in ethics, social and political philosophy, arts, culture, and education.  

 

Featured Speakers

David I. Smith is director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College and director of graduate studies in education. Additionally, he serves as editor of the International Journal of Christianity and Education. His books include The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality and Foreign Language Learning (with Barbara Carvill; 2000), Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity (2009), and Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning (with James K. A. Smith; 2011).

Patrick Deneen is David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies at University of Notre Dame. Deneen was awarded the A.P.S.A.’s Leo Strauss Award for Best Dissertation in Political Theory in 1995, and an honorable mention for the A.P.S.A.’s Best First Book Award in 2000. He has been awarded research fellowships from Princeton University and the Earhart Foundation. His teaching and writing interests focus on the history of political thought, American political thought, religion and politics, and literature and politics. He is currently working on several book projects, and his recent publications include the edited volumes The Democratic Soul (2011) and Redeeming Democracy in America (2011)

Minette Drumwright is associate professor of advertising in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Her current research involves studies of social responsibility in business, particularly in marketing and advertising. Her research interests also include services marketing, marketing strategy, and business ethics. She has written articles and cases for various books and journals. She has won two school-wide teaching awards at UT for her MBA course on services marketing. Outside the university, she has taught in corporate executive education programs in Mexico, Europe, and Asia as well as in the U.S. In between her undergraduate and graduate degrees, she worked in advertising and public relations for seven years.

Francis Su is Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He is currently president of the Mathematical Association of America. His research is in geometric combinatorics and applications to the social sciences, and he has co-authored numerous papers with undergraduates. He has received multiple NSF research grants for his work. He also has a passion for teaching and popularizing mathematics. From the Mathematical Association of America, he received the 2001 Hasse Prize for expository writing and the 2004 Alder Award and the 2013 Haimo Award for distinguished teaching. He authors the popular Math Fun Facts website and iPhone app.

Chad Wellmon is associate professor of German studies and history at the University of Virginia, Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, and editor of The Infernal Machine, an initiative of The Hedgehog Review. Wellmon’s primary research and teaching areas include European intellectual history, Romanticism, and media and social theory. His published work includes Becoming Human: Romantic Anthropology and the Embodiment of Freedom (2010) and Organizing Enlightenment: Information Overload and the Invention of the Modern University (2015).

Simon Oliver is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. His research expertise lies in the area of Christian systematic theology, particularly the doctrine of creation, the historical relationship between science and theology, and the thought of Thomas Aquinas. His current research project, Creation’s Ends: Teleology, Ethics, and the Natural, focuses on theological and philosophical notions of causation and the concept of purposiveness in nature. He also has research interests in theological anthropology, Christian ethics, and the relationship between theology and contemporary philosophy. He was ordained as a priest in the diocese of Ely in 1999, and in 2011 he was installed as Canon Theologian of Southwell Minster. His publications include Philosophy, God and Motion (2005) and Creation (2015).

Featured Panels

Vocational Discernment as a Resource for Higher Learning
David Cunningham, Hope College
William Cavanaugh, DePaul University
Hannah Schell, Monmouth College
Doug Henry, Baylor University

Is the “Benedict Option” the Best Option for Christian Universities?
Rick Ostrander, Council for Christian Colleges & Universities
Rod Dreher, American Conservative
Matthew Bonzo, Cornerstone University
Trisha Posey, John Brown University

Current Landscape of Church-related Higher Education
Joe Creech, Valparaiso University
Jane Kelley Rodeheffer, Pepperdine University
Mark Schwehn, Valparaiso University

Integrating Stewardship into Graduate Education
Chris Golde, Stanford University
Chris Rios, Baylor University
Rochelle Tractenberg, Georgetown University

Rendering Unto Caesar: How Common Core Undermines Catholic Education
Anthony Esolen, Providence College
Dan Guernsey, Ave Maria University
Jane Robbins, American Principles Project
Kevin Ryan, Boston University