Books published by University of Notre Dame Press

Written for theologians, philosophers, social scientists, and policymakers interested in the theological and philosophical foundations of economics, this carefully researched study argues that precarious, subsistence living is not an immutable law of nature. Rather, such a chronic, dismal condition reflects personal and collective moral failure.

Edith Stein, a Catholic convert of Jewish heritage is the second woman in German history to be awarded a PhD in philosophy. The sixteen essays in this collection, written by scholars from the US and Europe, examine her legacy. It represents the comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis in English of Stein's life and philosophical writings.

These essays consider various present-day and historical efforts to make a language dominant through textual, institutional, academic, and literary means. Contributors examine pressures to elevate one language at the expense of another and the cultural and intellectual consequences of that elevation.

Ned Balbo's 2004 Sandeen Prize-winning collection of poetry seeks a voice for contemporary and historical figures as they face the ecstasy and grief of love. In these poems, Lives of the Sleepers explores the connections of men and women across the centuries, and interrogates those patterns that reassert themselves.

This award-winning book, written by Jean-Luc Barre at the request of the Maritain Archives in Kolbsheim, France, and published in France in 1995, was the first biography of noted French philosopher Jacques Maritain and his wife Raissa. Drawing on the wealth of Maritain materials at the Kolbsheim archives, many of which are unpublished, Barre offers a clear and objective account of the remarkable lives and intellectual pursuits of the Maritains. Noted scholar and translator Bernard Doering has now made this essential work available for the first time in English. Jacques and Raissa Maritain: Beggars for Heaven focuses not only on the Maritains' philosophical work, but also on their pursuit of social justice, their opposition to the Vichy, their battle against intellectual repression in the church, and their contemplative life of prayer and devotion. Barre places a particular emphasis on the Maritains' close and supportive friendships with novelists, poets, painters, and musicians who were considered revolutionary at the time. Doering's translation will appeal not only to scholars but also to anyone interested in intellectual history generally and the intellectual history of modern Catholicism in particular.

Spirituality seems to be a basic human good essential for human flourishing. This work raises questions about spirituality in the workplace. What are the moral questions that should guide leaders? Is spirituality being treated as simply an instrumental good?

In The Extravagant, Robert Baker explores the interplay between poetry and philosophy in the modern period. He aims to illuminate adventures of ""extravagant"" or ""wandering"" language that is in the world. Also shaping the book is that a dialectic of instrumental reason and creative negativity has been at work throughout modern culture.

A modern-language translation of commentaries by the 12th-century arts master, Clarembald of Arras, on two works by the Roman philosopher Boethius (""De Hebdomadibus"" and ""De Trinitate""). The volume includes notes and an introduction, which discuss the biography, writings and style of Clarembald.

This text examines how bioethics has developed over the last 25 years and reconsiders some of its central concepts and arguments. The author seeks to redirect bioethical discussion away from its current focus on public policy, back toward questions of metaphysical and religious significance.

This critique of Henri Bergson is Jacques Maritain's first book. In it he shows he has a grasp of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and an ability to show its relevance to other systems such as that of Bergson. This text presents Jacques Maritain's as a philosopher, a Thomist and a critic.

Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb is a compelling and highly original study of the paradox of courage. Richard Avramenko contends that courage is not simply one virtue among many; rather, it is the primary means for humans to raise themselves out of their individualistic, isolated, and materialistic existence. As such, courage is an absolute and permanent good for collective human life. Specifically, Avramenko argues that when we risk "e;life and limb"e; for one another we reveal a fundamental care that binds our community together. Paradoxically, the same courage that brings humans together also drives us apart because courage is traditionally understood as manly, by definition, exclusionary, inegalitarian, and violent. Avramenko explores the efforts of political thinkers throughout history-such as Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Tocqueville-to reformulate courage so as to hold fast to all that is good about it while jettisoning that which is problematic. In addition to martial courage, the book looks at political courage, moral courage, and economic courage. Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb makes a vital contribution to the discipline of political science. Clearly and engagingly written, the book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of political theory, ethics, and gender studies.

This study focuses on a genre of literature written for the education of the Carolingian clergy: Carolingian baptismal instructions. This volume contains the Latin text of 66 manuscipts, as well as descriptions, introductions and a topical survey of the contents of these manuscripts.

By applying various critical historical strategies and methodologies to the study of 19th- and 20th-century American public life, this volume unearths fascinating chronicles in American history, such as the alliance of the Anti-Saloon League and the Klu Klux Klan.

Among the challenges for democracies in Latin America and Southern Europe are weakened political parties, politicized militaries, compromised judiciaries, corrupt police forces and widespread citizen distrust. These essays offer an examination of the political structures and institutions bequeathed by authoritarian regimes.

This text presents a case for the value of thinking deeply about education in America from a historically orthodox and broadly ecumenical Christian point of view. It argues that thinking philosophically about education is essential for progress and invites the reader to ""participate"" in the study.

In this new translation of Saint Thomas Aquinas's "Treatise on Law", R.J. Henle, an authority on philosophy and jurisprudence, provides the necessary background for an informed reading of the "Treatise" as well as an in-depth commentary on the text, in English.

Fulfillment in Christ presents an original, contemporary treatment of one of the most challenging parts of Catholic theology. Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw offer a radical rethinking of fundamental moral theology in the light of Vatican II and in response to the current turmoil in that field.

Explores the physical spaces in which early modern law and drama were performed, the social and imaginative practices that energized such spaces, and the rhetorical patterns that make the two institutions far less discrete and far more collaborative than has previously been recognized.

In this original and compelling book, Jeffrey P. Bishop, a philosopher, ethicist, and physician, argues that something has gone sadly amiss in the care of the dying by contemporary medicine and in our social and political views of death, as shaped by our scientific successes and ongoing debates about euthanasia and the "e;right to die"e;-or to live. The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, informed by Foucault's genealogy of medicine and power as well as by a thorough grasp of current medical practices and medical ethics, argues that a view of people as machines in motion-people as, in effect, temporarily animated corpses with interchangeable parts-has become epistemologically normative for medicine. The dead body is subtly anticipated in our practices of exercising control over the suffering person, whether through technological mastery in the intensive care unit or through the impersonal, quasi-scientific assessments of psychological and spiritual "e;medicine."e; The result is a kind of nihilistic attitude toward the dying, and troubling contradictions and absurdities in our practices. Wide-ranging in its examples, from organ donation rules in the United States, to ICU medicine, to "e;spiritual surveys,"e; to presidential bioethics commissions attempting to define death, and to high-profile cases such as Terri Schiavo's, The Anticipatory Corpse explores the historical, political, and philosophical underpinnings of our care of the dying and, finally, the possibilities of change. This book is a ground-breaking work in bioethics. It will provoke thought and argument for all those engaged in medicine, philosophy, theology, and health policy.

A collection of original essays presented at an international conference held in Dublin in 2002. This book asks the question: What do philosophers mean by ""idealism?"" It also takes up the question of ""idealism"" in the history of philosophy from Plato, through late ancient and medieval thought, to Berkeley, Kant, and Hegel.

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias-linguistic puzzles-as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein's method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas's thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Exploring the ethical, public policy, and scientific implications of embryonic and adult stem cell research, this text offers a variety of scientific and public policy perspectives; vigorously examines the ethics of stem cell research; and considers issues of social justice, morality, and public policy.

Studying the construction of Irish national identity from the early eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries, this book focuses on how texts concerning Irish music, and the social settings within which those texts emerged, contributed to the imagining of Ireland as ""the Land of Song.

This volume is Mounier's final definition of personalism. First published less than a year before his death in 1950, it is a beautifully written, clear yet unsystematic statement of personalism.

Opening the Qur'an can be a bewildering experience to non-Muslim, English-speaking readers. Those who expect historical narratives, stories, or essays on morals are perplexed once they pass the beautiful first Surah, often shocked and then bogged down by Surah 2, and even offended by Surah 3's strictures against nonbelievers. Walter H. Wagner "e;opens"e; the Qur'an by offering a comprehensive and extraordinarily readable, step-by-step introduction to the text, making it accessible to students, teachers, clergy, and general readers interested in Islam and Islam's holy Book. Wagner first places the prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an, and the early Muslim community in their historical, geographical, and theological contexts. This background is a basis for interpreting the Qur'an and understanding its role in later Muslim developments as well as for relationships between Muslims, Jews, and Christians. He then looks in detail at specific passages, moving from cherished devotional texts to increasingly difficult and provocative subjects. The selected bibliography serves as a resource for further reading and study. Woven into the discussion are references to Islamic beliefs and practices. Wagner shows great sensitivity toward the risks and opportunities for non-Muslims who attempt to interpret the Qur'an, and sympathy in the long struggle to build bridges of mutual trust and honest appreciation between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Thornton Wilder, the only author to have won the Pulitzer Prize for both drama and fiction, frequently portrays characters struggling with religious and theological issues. His work has been examined by critics in connection with American Puritanism, existentialism, and Vedantic literature, but little attention has been paid to the works of Thornton's brother Amos, an ordained minister, poet, biblical scholar, literary critic, and professor at Harvard. Thornton Wilder and Amos Wilder: Writing Religion in Twentieth-Century America is the first book to explore the relationship between Thornton's work and his brother Amos's scholarship. Previous critics of Thornton's works have claimed that they describe timeless human values. Christopher Wheatley, on the contrary, argues that Wilder is primarily interested in the historical context of ideas, the ways in which they are a product of their time. He demonstrates how this parallels elements in Amos's biblical scholarship. For the most part scholars have also treated Wilder's works as if his ideas were static throughout his career. Wheatley contends that Wilder's early works of fiction and drama examine religion in times of historical crisis, whereas his later works demonstrate a deep concern about the intellectual, social, economic, and spiritual currents of contemporary America, as well as the influences of existentialism and postwar skepticism on his evolving religious ideas. Drawing on extensive archival research in the papers of both brothers, Thornton Wilder and Amos Wilder: Writing Religion in Twentieth-Century America is essential reading for anyone interested in the Wilders, religion and literature, or American literature and drama.

This is an intellectually rigorous and systematic account of Thomas's teaching regarding the analogy of being. Steven A. Long's work stands in contradistinction to historical-doctrinal surveys and general introductions, retrieving by way of an interpretation of Aristotle and Aquinas the indispensable role that analogy of being plays for metaphysics and, consequently, for theology.

Displacing the State makes two important contributions to the study of religion, conflict, and peace building. First, it shows how peace is conceptualised and negotiated in daily life, often in ways that are counterintuitive and anything but peaceful. Second, the volume uses African case studies to confront assumptions about the nature of the relationships among religion, conflict, and peace.