Conferences

The Inn at Villanova University
601 County Line Road, Radnor, PA 19087
Phone: 610.523.1776 / Fax: 610.523.1777
Nearby Hotels
Radnor Hotel
591 E. Lancaster Avenue
St. Davids, PA 19087
Phone: 610.688.5800; 800.537.3000
Fax: 610.341.3299
(At the junction of Route 30 & I-476)
Devon Courtyard
762 Lancaster Avenue
Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087
Phone: 610.687.6633; 800.321.2211
(At the junction of Route 30 and Old Eagle School Road)
Travel
By Taxi:
Bennett Taxi Service: 610.525.1770
Liberty Cab Company: 215.389.8000
Villanova Conference Center Front Desk: 610.523.1776
By Plane:
Use Philadelphia International Airport.
By Train:
Take AMTRAK to the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Ask the attendant to direct you to the Suburban Trains. Take the R5 to the Radnor Station, then take a cab to the Conference Center.
By Automobile:
Please click on the link for Door To Door Directions: 601 County Line Rd, Wayne, PA 19087
2016 Reconsiderations Conference Program
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
7:30 P.M. Driscoll Hall Auditorium Main Campus
Welcoming Remarks: Fr. Peter Donohue, OSA
President, Villanova University
Introduction: James Wetzel, Villanova University
Saint Augustine Lecture
Fr. Allan Fitzgerald, OSA Villanova University
Engaging the Gospel of John
Friday September 16th
Room 115 VCC
Morning Session MODERATOR: Joshua Nunziato (VU)
I. The Augustinian Person
9:00 Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University
Fleshing Out Augustine's Moral Psychology
9:40 J. Patout Burns, Jr., University of Vanderbilt, emeritus
Human Agency in Augustine’s doctrine of Predestination
BREAK
10:35 Matthew Drever, University of Tulsa
Finding our home in God: reimagining human personhood within the life of the Spirit
11:15 Discussion
12:15 LUNCH - Main Dining Room
Afternoon Session: MODERATOR: Martin Laird, OSA (VU)
II. Augustine’s thought in cultural context
1:45 Margaret R. Miles, Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, emerita
To Die For: Bodies, Pleasures, and the Young Augustine
2:25 Catherine Conybeare, Bryn Mawr College
ut tecum tamquam mecum audeam conloqui: the politics of retun
BREAK
3:20 Michael Lamb, University of Oxford
Augustine and Republican Liberty:Contextualizing His Defense of Coercion
4:00 Discussion
6:00 Reception
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Room 115 VCC
Morning Session: MODERATOR: Kevin Hughes (VU)
III. Augustine and Marriage
9:00 David Hunter, University of Kentucky
Augustine’s Doubts on Divorce: A Reading of De coniugiis adulterinis
9:40 John Cavadini, University of Notre Dame
Reconsidering Marriage and Concupiscence
BREAK
10:35 Danuta Shanzer, Universität Wien
What Have Philology and Literary Criticism To Do with Augustine on Marriage?
11:15 Discussion
12:15 LUNCH - Main Dining Room
Afternoon Session: MODERATOR: Jonathan Yates, (VU)
IV. Augustine on John
1:45 Johannes Brachtendorf, University of Tübingen
“Jesus wept" (Joh 11,35) - Christ's sadness in Augustine's and Aquinas' Commentaries on the Gospel of St. John
2:25 Volker Henning Drecoll, University of Tübingen
Remarks on the Christology of the In Iohannis euangelium tractatus
BREAK
3:20 Michael Cameron, University of Portland
Johannine Trends in Augustine's Formation ad Confessiones
4:00 Discussion
4:45 Conclusion
Reconsiderations Conference Archive
Reconsiderations IV (2012)
The Saint Augustine Lecture
James Wetzel, Villanova University
A Tangle of Two Cities
Session : I. Augustine’s World
Robert Wilken, University of Virginia
Augustine's World and the World of Cyril of Alexandria
Jason BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University
What Augustine (May Have) Learned from the Manichaeans
Maureen Tilley, Fordham University
Family and Financial Conflict in the Donatist Controversy: Augustine’s Pastoral Problem.
Session: II. Interpreting Augustine
Michael McCarthy, S.J., Santa Clara University
Interpreting Augustine: Mirrors, Models, and the Middle Voice
John Peter Kenney, Saint Michael’s College
God as Being: Interpreting Augustine
Ellen Charry, Princeton Theological Seminary
Augustine’s Psychology of Ascent Asocial?
Session : III. Augustine and Theology
Lewis Ayres, Durham University
“In the School of Plato”? Some comments on “Philosophical” Readings of Augustine's De Trinitate
John Cavadini, University of Notre Dame
Spousal Vision: A Study of Text ad History in the Theology of St. Augustine
William Harmless, S.J., Creighton University
A Love Supreme: Augustine’s “Jazz” of Theology
Session: II. Augustine’s Legacy
Irena Backus, University of Geneva
Leibniz and Augustine
Willemien Otten, University of Chicago
Between Praise and Appraisal: Guidelines for the Assessment of Augustine's Intellectual Legacy
Paul van Geest, Tilburg University
Multi-layered indebtedness: St. Augustine as fons and auctoritas for Gabriel Biel
Reconsiderations III (2009)
September 17, 18, 19, 2009
A Conference on the thought and legacy of Augustine of Hippo - Celebrating 50 years of the Saint Augustine Lecture Series
"Saint Augustine Lecture"
Isabelle Bochet, S.F.X., Institut Catholique Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, Paris, "Scripture in Augustine's Controversy with Porphyry"
Session I: Augustine and Scripture
Michael Cameron, University of Portland; Karla Pollman, St Andrews University, Scotland; John Cavadini, Notre Dame University; Michael McCarthy, S.J., Santa Clara University
Session II: Augustine the Theologian
Brian Daley, S.J., Notre Dame University; Robert Dodaro, O.S.A., Augustinianum, Rome; Lewis Ayres, Durham University; Mathijs Lamberigts, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Session III: "Augustine and Philosophy"
Luigi Alici, Università di Macerata, Italy; Gerd Van Riel, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Giovanni Catapano, Università di Padova, Italy; Frederick Van Fleteren, LaSalle University
Session IV: Augustine Engaging the World
John Bowlin, Princeton Theological Seminary; Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Grinnell College; Eric Gregory, Princeton University; Charles Mathewes, University of Virg
Reconsiderations Conference II (2006)
September 28-30, 2006
A conference on Augustine of Hippo and the development of his thought. This Conference was part of The Dialogue between Faith and Culture: A Series of Conferences and Symposia in Honor of the Inauguration of the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A. as Villanova University’s thirty-second President.
2006 St. Augustine Lecture
Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 7:30 P.M.
"Facing Wealth and Poverty: Defining Augustine's Social Doctrine"
Professor Claude Lepelley: Emeritus professor, University of Paris X – Nanterre. Emeritus lecturer, École des Hautes Études – Sciences religieuses, Sorbonne. Emeritus president of the Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, Paris.
Session I: The God of Augustine
Lewis Ayres, Emory University, Atlanta; Isabelle Bochet, sfx, Institut d'Etudes Augustiniennes, Paris, Centre Sèvres-Facultés Jésuites de Paris; Michael Cameron, University of Portland; John Kevin Coyle, St. Paul University, Ottawa.
Session II: Augustine on “The Self”
Sarah Byers, Ave Maria University; John Cavadini, University of Notre Dame; John Kenney, St. Michael’s College; James Wetzel, Villanova University.
Session III: Augustine the Controversialist
Robert Dodaro O.S.A., Istituto Patristico Augustinianum; Eric Rebillard, Cornell University; Michel Barnes, Marquette University; Karla Pollman, University of St. Andrews.
Session IV: Augustine and the Philosophers
Johannes Brachtendorf, Universität Tübingen; Giovanni Catapano, Università di Padova; Gerd Van Riel Katholieke, Universiteit Leuven; Marianne Djuth, Canisius College.
Sponsored by Villanova University and Augustinian Studies, in collaboration with the Augustinianum, Rome and the Augustijns Historisch Instituut, Heverlee-Louvain, Belgium.
Reconsiderations Conference (2003)
December 4-6, 2003
A Conference on Contemporary Augustinian Scholarship. This conference was on the occasion of the 2003 St. Augustine Lecture by Peter Brown Rollins Professor of History Princeton University, sponsored by Villanova University and Augustinian Studies, in collaboration with the Patristic Institute Augustinianum, Rome, Italy.
Scholars who study the figure, history, and thought of Augustine of Hippo find themselves compelled to deal with Peter Brown's important work Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1967, 2000). Its publication almost four decades ago marked a new era in Augustinian scholarship, making it a reference point and signaling a virtual renaissance in the study of the Bishop of Hippo, then and still today. On the occasion of the 2003 St. Augustine Lecture by Prof. Brown, Villanova University is sponsoring an International Conference that will examine the current state and future prospects for Augustinian scholarship.
2003 St. Augustine Lecture
Thursday, December 4, 2003, 7:30 P.M.
"Augustine and a Crisis of Wealth in the Late Antique Church"
Prof. Peter Brown
Friday, December 5, 2003
Morning sessions: Augustine and the Practice of Theology
Moderator: David Hunter (Iowa State)
Lewis Ayres - (Emory) "Augustine on the Rule of Faith: Rhetoric, Christology, and the foundation of Christian thinking"
Carol Harrison - (Durham) "The most intimate feeling of my mind": The permanence of grace in Augustine's theological practice."
Michael Cameron - (Portland) "Totus Christus and the Psychagogy of Augustine's Sermons."
Afternoon Session: Augustine, Roman Africa, and the Construction of Christianity
Moderator: Darlene Weaver (Villanova)
E. Ann Matter - (Penn) "De cura feminarum: Augustine the Bishop, North African Women, and the Development of a Theology of Female Nature."
Eric Rebillard - (CARE, Paris) "Nec deserere memorias suorum: Augustine and the family-based commemoration of the dead."
Patout Burns - (Vanderbilt) "Augustine Assimilating Cyprian: Integrating Donatist Clergy."
December 6, 2003
Morning Session: Augustine on the Human Being and Christ
Moderator: Daniel Doyle, O.S.A. (Villanova)
Robert Dodaro - (Augustinianum) "Augustine and the Revision of the Heroic Ideal"
Mathijs Lamberigts - (Leuven) "In defence of Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and men. Augustine's view of Christ in the Pelagian Controversy."
John Cavadini - (Notre Dame) "Constructing and Deconstructing the Passions: an Augustinian Reconsideration."
Afternoon session: Augustine on Conversion, Asceticism, and Authority
Moderator: Catherine Conybeare (Bryn Mawr)
Conrad Leyser - (Manchester) "Homo pauper sum: Augustine, Church Property, and the Retrospective Self'."
George Lawless - (Augustinianum) "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi: The Rules of Saint Augustine."
Liz Clark - (Duke) "Distinguishing 'Distinction': The Uses of a Bishop's Authority."