Sullivan Lecturers

Sullivan Lecture Series, Fordham University

The Daniel J. Sullivan Memorial Lecture Series was inaugurated in the Spring of 1986 to honor an outstanding professor of philosophy whose talents as a teacher and administrator were wholeheartedly put at the service of Downtown Fordham from 1936 until his death in 1984. Professor Sullivan's warm, loving personality, as well as his moral integrity and dedication to his vocation endeared him to generations of students and colleagues. He was the author of two well known textbooks, Fundamentals of Logic and Introduction to Philosophy. The lecture was co-sponsored for many years by the Philosophy Department and Fordham's Jesuit Community with the aid of a fund established in Sullivan's honor. It has been sponsored by the Philosophy Department since fall 2010.

2023 Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), "Loving Strangers"
2022 Frederick Neuhouser (Barnard), "How to Criticize Inequality: Lessons from Piketty"
2021 Michelle Moody-Adams (Columbia), "Coming to Terms with History"
2020 Lisa Tessman (Binghamton University), "Moral Injury and Moral Failure"
2019 Jenann Ismael (Columbia University), "Does Determinism Clash With Freedom? A Look at Human Action Through the Lenses of Physics"
2018 Stephen Angle (Wesleyan University), "Confucianism as a Way of Life"
2017 Matthew Crawford, "Attention as a Cultural Problem and the Possibility of Education"
2016 Charles W. Mills (The Graduate Center CUNY), "Liberalism and Racial Justice"
2015

Agnes Callard (University of Chicago), "Can You Choose Who To Be?"

2014 Paul Boghossian (New York University), "Morality, Etiquette, and Taste: Are Our Judgements Objective?"
2013 Stephen Nadler (University of Wisconsin, Madison), "Why Was Spinoza Excommunicated?"
2012 Deborah Berghoffen (American University), "Making a Case for the Dignity of Vulnerability"
2011 Richard Bernstein (New School University), "Hannah Arendt on Power and Violence"
2010 John Cottingham (Reading University and Heythrop College), "Human Nature, Meaning, and Ultimate Value"
2009 Frederick Beiser (Syracuse University), "The Concept of Historicism"
2008 Nicholas Wolsterstorff (Yale University), "Can Human Rights Survive Secularization?"
2007 Robert Kraynak (Colgate University), "The Evolution of Catholic Natural Law: From Thomas to Finnis"
2006 Paul E. Sigmund (Princeton University), "Religion, Liberalism, and the Religion of Liberalism: A Reply to Ann Coulter"
2005 Alice Ramos (St. John's University), "Studiositas and Curiositas: Matters for Self-Examination"
2004 Peter Simpson (City University of New York), "How to be a Realist—Really"
2003 Francis Slade (St. Francis College), "Two Versions of Political Philosophy"
2002 Nancy Fraser (New School University), "Transnationalizing the Public Sphere"
2001 Robert Wood (University of Dallas), "Plato, Phenomenology, and the Perennial Task of Philosophy"
2000 James Marsh (Fordham University), "U.S. Justice is to Real Justice as . . ."
1999 John Caputo (Villanova University), "The Paradox of the Gift"
1998 Judith Stark (Seton Hall University), "Augustine: Dualism and Beyond"
1997 Bonnie Kent (Columbia University), "Ancient Excellence of Mere Modern Goodness? A Dilemma for Moral Philosophy"
1996 Dominic Balestra (Fordham University), "Science and Religion: Old Rivals or New Allies?"
1995 Eugene Fontinelli (Queens College), "Theistic Religion: Energizing or De-Energizing?"
1994 Francis Canavan, SJ (Fordham University), "Moral Conscience, Public Policy, and the Role of Religion"
1993 Aldo Tassi (Loyola College, Baltimore), "Philosophy and Theater"
1992 Mortimer J. Adler (University of Chicago), "Philosophical Theology: Its Major Heroes"
1991 Michael McCarthy (Vassar College), "The Critical Appropriation of Tradition"
1990 Gerald Galgan (St. Francis College), "The Medieval Roots of Modernity"
1989 W. Norris Clarke, SJ (Fordham University), "What Does It Mean To Be A Person?"
1988 Barbara Wall (Villanova University), "Economic Justice: Marxist Critiques and Catholic Response"
1987 Martin A. Bertman (Ben Gurion University), "Philosophy and Practice"
1986 Joseph O'Hare, SJ (Fordham University), "The American Catholic University: Crisis of Identity"
1985 Robert O. Johann (Fordham University), "Love as a Way of Life"