Published on March 17, 2014  

Samford University will host its inaugural biennial conference on "Teaching the Christian Intellectual Tradition” Oct. 2-4, 2014. The conference, supported by funding from the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, will focus on Augustine and feature plenary speakers Peter Kaufman (University of Richmond) and Kristen Deede Johnson (Western Theological Seminary). Samford’s Core Texts and University Fellows honors programs will sponsor the conference.

Samford religion professor and conference co-chair Scott McGinnis said the series is designed to provide an opportunity for scholars from across the disciplines to share ideas about teaching Christianity’s rich intellectual heritage to today’s undergraduates.

Conference organizers have issued a call for paper proposals designed with the non-specialist in mind, and which address incorporating Augustine in the classroom across academic disciplines. Possible proposal topics include, but are not limited to:

• teaching Augustine in the freshman core
• the interdisciplinary seminar
• literature and autobiography
• antiquity, the Middle Ages, modernity and post-modernity
• free will and determinism
• intellectual history

Proposals are due no later than May 16.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.