Cercle d'études: Fall 2025
Welcome to the page for the Cercle d'études seminar, Fall 2025! This trial-run of the Cercle saw weekly meetings of around 20 students, faculty, and staff from Notre Dame, Saint Mary's, and several visitors from the Midwest and over seas. Here you can get a sense of what we talked about by viewing the speakers, topics, images, and testimonials for the innaugeral version of the course.
Topics and Speakers
September 3rd, “Does the Liberal State Have a Future?”
Speaker: Prof. Paul Weithman
September 10, “What Does Human Creativity Contribute to the Natural Environment?”
Speaker: Prof. Therese Cory
September 17, 2025, "God and the Economy"
Speaker: Prof. Kirk Doran
September 24, “Where is Catholic Education Going?”
Speaker: Prof. John Betz
October 1st, "Evolution and the Problem of Evil”
Speaker: Prof. Brian Cutter
October 8, “Is Theology a Speculative or Practical Discipline”?
Speaker Prof. Joshua Lim
October 15, “What’s in it for Me? Augustine on why we choose evil.”
Speaker: Prof. David Cory
October 29, “Beauty and Ugliness”
Speaker: Prof. Mark Roche
November 5, “Are there intrinsically evil acts? Anscombe, Truman and the Atomic Bomb"
Speaker: Prof. José Torralba
November 12, “Feminist Theology and Catholic Tradition”
Prof. Mary Catherine Hilkert
November 19, “Is AI Conscious? How would we know? Should we care?”
Prof. Jean Porter
Student Testimonials
At the Cercle seminars, there was always a hunger and humility for knowledge—there was great and active discussion (so much so that there was a long queue of people waiting to ask questions). Everyone openly shared their thoughts in a communal and respectful atmosphere.
The Cercle d'études helped me rethink how I approach intense questions.
Sitting around the table, chatting with professors about complicated questions - it reminded me of a scene in a movie I saw about C.S. Lewis' life. It is how I imagined college would be.
We often touched on questions of beauty and relationship with the natural world, topics which I don't often engage with in my academic studies but found myself reflecting on more in my personal life because of my time spent in the seminar.
Prof David Cory on Augustine and why we choose evil was both theologically rich and generated amusing, insightful discussion!