Dr. Margarita Mooney on Being Human in the Modern World

What do current political debates, cultural changes and institutional shifts have to do with debates about the very essence of what it means to be human? This seminar, “Being Human in the Modern World: The Enduring Importance of the Idea of the Person,” will consider important academics, theologians, and engaged social critics who all shared an enduring concern about affirming the dignity of each person while also affirming that our full human personhood develops through relationships characterized by self-giving, communities of virtue, and an opening our souls to divine transcendence.

The common commitment to the person as a subject and object of free action, and the person as a center of meaning and value, and endowed with dignity by a creator inviolable nature of the person has translated into varying political and ethical projects of enormous significance in the 20th century. This colloquium will raise questions will focus on the nature of inter-subjectivity, communion and love; and the relationship between these questions and culture and politics in modernity, in particular debates on freedom, identity, authenticity, education and politics.