“Return to the Real: Hope and Moral Restoration in Work, Play, and Politics”
June 6-8, 2024
College Park Marriott
Thursday, June 6
2:00-3:30pm Student Panel: “New Perspectives on the Real and Ideal: Pt. 1”
Chair: Matthew T. Cantirino, Assumption University
“‘Widening the Skirts of Light’: Middlemarch and the Moral Imagination”
Sarah Zentner, The Catholic University of America
“Eric Voegelin, Nicholas Cusanus, and the Politics of the Real”
Joseph Ahmad, The Catholic University of America
“Injuring the Moral Imagination: An Investigation of Conscience and Moral Restoration”
Catherine Yanko, The Catholic University of America
“The Realistic and Hopeful Vision of Racial Diversity in the Music of TobyMac”
John Quinn, The Catholic University of America
3:45-5:15pm Student Panel: “New Perspectives on the Real and Ideal: Pt. 2”
Chair: Justin Litke, The Catholic University of America
“Imitation in both Sensation and Experience: Exploring Neurology and Spiritual Exercises”
Dominic Cassella, The Catholic University of America
“The Aesthetic Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan and Catholic Metaphysics: A Step Towards a Comprehensive Contemporary Catholic Aesthetic”
Gianna Ligotino, University of Texas at Austin
“Principle and Pragmatism: The Unity of Plato’s Republic and Laws, in dialogue with Aristotle”
Charles Connellan, University of Dallas
“Land as a Common Good & Love as a Virtue: Keeping Eudaimonia at the Center of Environmental Virtue Ethics”
Madeleine Austin, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
5:00-6:00pm Registration
5:30-7:00pm Reception/Cash Bar
Welcome: Luke C. Sheahan, President, Academy of Philosophy and Letters
7:00-9:00pm Dinner Lecture
Introduction: Shaun Rieley, Hillsdale College
“War and the Unmaking of American National Power”
Col. Douglas Macgregor
9:00-11:00pm Reception
Friday, June 7
8:00-8:30am Late Registration
8:30-10:15am “Modern Politics and the Ideal”
Chair: William Byrne, St. John’s University
“Does Publius Disdain the Imagination?”
Matthew T. Cantirino, Assumption University
“Equality vs. Egalitarianism: Dreams and Realities”
Thomas Sarrouf, Intercollegiate Studies Institute
“Idyllic Dreams and Material Realities: The Collapse of the Empire of Liberty”
Zachary Yost, The Yost Post
“Philip Rieff and the Virtuosi of Creation and De-creation”
Ethan Alexander-Davey, Campbell University
10:15-10:30am Break
10:30-12:15pm “Democracy and Leadership at 100”
Chair: Eric Adler, University of Maryland
“A Scandal and a Missed Opportunity”
Claes Ryn, The Catholic University of America
“In Defense of the Humanities: Irving Babbitt and Educational Renewal”
Darrell Falconburg, The Russell Kirk Center
“Democracy and Leadership at 100: Lessons for the 21st Century”
Jason Jewell, Faulkner University
“John Lukacs and Irving Babbitt on the Challenge of Populism”
Michael Federici, Middle Tennessee State University
12:15-2:00pm Lunch Lecture
Introduction: Matthew T. Cantirino, Assumption University
“Real Realism: Putting the ‘Eu’ Back in Utopia”
Patrick Deneen, University of Notre Dame
2:00-3:30pm PODCAST/INTERVIEW BREAK
Meeting of the APL Board of Directors and Officers
3:45-5:30pm “The Aesthetics of the Ideal and the Real”
Chair: Darrell Falconburg, The Russell Kirk Center
“Imagining Virtue or Seeking Truth?: Sidney, Milton, and the Function of Fiction”
Katherine L. Bradshaw, Ancient Language Institute
“The Cure for Epistemological Idealism”
Jim Stewart, University of South Carolina
“Shakespeare as Conservative Mentor”
Michael Lucchese, Pipe Creek Consulting
5:30-7:00pm Cash Bar
7:00-9:00pm Dinner Lecture (Co-sponsored by the National Civic Art Society)
Introduction: Justin Shubow, National Civic Art Society
“The Arrow of Aesthetics: Architecture’s Role in Cultural Formation Through Virtue”
C.J. Howard, The Catholic University of America
9:00-11:00pm Reception
Saturday, June 8
8:30-10:00am Member Meeting Breakfast
For APL members only
10:00-12:00pm “Philosophical and Historical Reflections on the Idyllic”
Chair: Michael Federici, Middle Tennessee State University
“Plato the Realist: Approximating the Ideal Within Mankind’s Limits”
David Talcott, New Saint Andrews College
“Babbitt’s ‘Idyllic Imagination’ and American Progressivism – Old and New.”
William Byrne, St. John’s University
“The Protestant Hypothesis and the Spirit of Weber”
Gene Callahan, New York University
“What Can We Learn from Augustinian Realism? Revisiting Themes and Distinctions in Reinhold Niebuhr”
Jose Idler, Independent Scholar
12:00pm Departures