Seminars

Jonathan J. Sanford

Eleonore Stump

Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. She is also Honorary Professor at Wuhan University, the Logos Institute and School of Divinity at St. Andrews, and York University; and she is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University. She has published extensively in philosophy of religion, contemporary metaphysics, and medieval philosophy. Her books include Aquinas (2003), Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (2010), Atonement (2018), and The Image of God: The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Mourning (2022). She has given the Gifford Lectures (Aberdeen, 2003), the Wilde lectures (Oxford, 2006), the Stewart lectures (Princeton, 2009), and the Stanton lectures (Cambridge, 2018). In 2021, she was given the award of Johanna Quandt Young Academy Distinguished Senior Scientist by the Goethe University (Frankfurt, Germany). She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, Philosophers in Jesuit Education, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division; and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John F. Crosby

James Matthew Wilson

James Matthew Wilson is the Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature and the founding director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas. The author of eleven books, his most recent collection of poems, The Strangeness of the Good (2020), won the poetry book of the year award from the Catholic Media Awards. The Dallas Institute of Humanities awarded him the Hiett Prize in 2017; Memoria College gave him the Parnassus Prize, in 2022; and the Conference on Christianity and Literature twice gave him the Lionel Basney Award. He serves as poet-in-residence of the Benedict XVI Institute, editor of Colosseum Books, and poetry editor of Modern Age magazine. His next book, Catholic Modernism and the Irish “Avant-Garde” will be published in 2023.

Mark K. Spencer

University of St Thomas, MN Professor of Philosophy

Research Areas: Philosophical Anthropology, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Philosophical Theology

Dr. Mark K. Spencer, Ph.D. is a Professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Spencer fell in love with philosophy in high school when he first encountered the writings of Albert Camus and St. Thomas Aquinas. He earned his Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, and his M.A. and B.A. from Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he first encountered the work of Dietrich von Hildebrand. He is the author of 2 books and over 60 papers and reviews, mostly focusing on the nature of the human person, beauty, and God’s relations to us. In his research, he above all tries to synthesize many traditions’ approaches to these topics, drawing on the scholastic, phenomenological, analytic, and Greek Patristic traditions. Among the things he takes greatest delight in is introducing students to the insights of these traditions, so as to help them better perceive and contemplate reality, for which he finds the work of von Hildebrand an indispensable guide. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Susanna, and their four children. Together, they especially enjoy hiking, camping, reading novels, watching films, gardening, and homeschooling.

Patrick Lee

Dr. Patrick Lee is a professor of philosophy and holds the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Chair in Bioethics. He is also the director of the Center for Bioethics at Franciscan University of Steubenville. In this capacity he defends and articulates the Church’s position on a wide range of human life issues through his writings, debates, and public speaking engagements.

He received a B.A. from the University of Dallas, an M.A. from Niagara University, and a Ph.D. from Marquette University. He taught for eleven years at the University of St. Thomas in Houston before coming to Franciscan University in 1992.

He is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and Society of Christian Philosophers. In 2005 Prof. Lee gave the annual John Heiser lecture at Niagara University entitled “Embryo-Killing and Stem Cell Research.” He is also the recipient of the Cardinal Wright Award for Excellence in Catholic Scholarship in Integrating Faith and Reason. He is the author of three books: Conjugal Union, What Marriage is and Why it Matters (co-authored with Robert P. George), Abortion and Unborn Human Life, and Body-Self Dualism and Contemporary Ethics and Politics (co-authored with Robert George).

Matthew Shea

Brandon Dahm

Rachel Bulman

Rachel Bulman has been married for over 14 years, and her husband is a permanent deacon. They have six children from 12 years to 20 months old, and the youngest children are a set of twins. Rachel is a national speaker and author. She served as editor for Word on Fire’s With All Her Mind: A Call to the Intellectual Life, a collection of essays exploring the intellectual life for women, and she wrote Becoming Wife: Saying Yes to More Than the Dress (Our Sunday Visitor, June 2023), a theological and philosophical reflection on spousality. She has written and hosted a television series for Catholic TV about Eucharistic miracles, and she appears with her family in the show Meet the Bulmans currently airing on the Word on Fire Institute’s YouTube channel. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and radio shows. Rachel serves on the advisory board of The GIVEN Institute, and in her spare time, she enjoys reading a good book, lifting weights, and perfecting her Old Fashioned cocktail recipe.

James Beauregard

Dr. Gregory Bottaro

Dr. Greg Bottaro is the director of the CatholicPsych Institute and the CatholicPsych Academy. He developed the Catholic Mindfulness online course. Before getting his doctorate, he spent four years living as a Franciscan friar, serving the poor in the tradition of St. Francis. He ultimately discerned a call to pursue family life. Six years after leaving NYC as a friar, Dr. Bottaro returned as a psychologist. His aim is fundamentally the same – to serve. Instead of serving those suffering material poverty, he now seeks to serve those with psychological needs.

The CatholicPsych mission is to integrate insights from psychology with the Catholic faith to provide the best possible treatment and resources to help people flourish.

Amanda Achtman

Amanda Achtman studied liberal arts and political theory in her hometown of Calgary, Alberta. After creating a viral political parody video, she moved to Toronto to do a mix of journalism, crowdfunding, and advocacy addressing the most passionate and underserved issues in Canada. Living the alternation between action and contemplation, she then went to Poland to become a student of saints, heroes, and martyrs at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Passionate about foreign policy, human rights, religious freedom, and public bioethics, Amanda recently served as the senior advisor to a member of parliament working to prevent the expansion of euthanasia to persons living with a disability or mental illness. She is an alumna of programs of the Hildebrand Project, the Acton Institute, ADF International, the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society, and many others. Raised in a Jewish-Catholic family, Amanda has had a lifelong passion for humanizing the culture. Currently based in Rome, she is now pursuing a Licentiate in Judaic Studies and Jewish-Christian Relations at the Cardinal Bea Centre of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Christopher T. Haley

“Only the brave return to the source.” — a favorite line from a Hölderlin poem. For Christopher, the source was beauty. Philosophy has always captured his interest, but it was beauty that was his first love, that first broke his heart (and a broken heart the Lord will not refuse, Ps. 51). After many years in school studying philosophy at St. Edward’s University (where he discovered Catholicism) ancient languages at the University of Texas (where he converted from atheism to Catholicism), and the University of Dallas (where he was introduced to Christian Personalism) Christopher misread Aristotle’s Rhetoric and decided that he needed to do something “practical;” so he began working in teaching, marketing, and politics, striking out in new areas with innovative ideas drawn from classical sources (he has a restive habit of starting new projects and companies). 

But his restless soul brought him back to philosophy. He had heard of Dietrich von Hildebrand while studying St. Edith Stein at the University of Dallas, and was eagerly awaiting the publication of Hildebrand’s Aesthetics, when one day his mentor at UD suggested that he apply for a Summer Fellowship with the Hildebrand Project. So he dropped everything and applied. Now, Christopher has always had the strange practice of including his favorite poets and composers on his resume, and for once, it worked (he always knew it would!): at the Hildebrand Project, he finally found a place where a love for beauty mattered—and thus he returned to the source. 

At the end of his Summer Fellowship, he was so excited about the potential of the Hildebrand Project that he refused to leave, finding clever ways to insert himself into vital operations and creating entire program areas with no one to manage them but himself. As a result, he now oversees the Hildebrand Project’s publishing enterprise, marketing, communications, and has helped pioneer a number of innovative and successful programs. 

In his free time—when he gets free time—he likes to listen to classical music, write essays, ride two-wheeled vehicles, and build things. He also hosts a weekly theology symposium at a bar in his beloved state of Texas.  

John Henry Crosby

John Henry Crosby is a translator, writer, critic, and cultural entrepreneur. 

Late in 2003, searching for a life’s work that could integrate the quest for truth, the existential need for beauty, and the service of a great good, and beginning to despair of ever finding such a mission, he called Alice von Hildebrand to propose that he spend one year translating her late husband’s Aesthetics. Would she help, he asked.

She did, and her blessing transformed his one-year plan into lifelong mission that soon attracted the collaboration of others. Thus, the life’s work he had sought found him. Established in February 2004, the Hildebrand Project’s mission to renew culture has grown to encompass publications, events, fellowships, and online resources that draw on the continuing vitality of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thought and witness.

Under his leadership, the Hildebrand Project has become the world’s leading organization dedicated to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s legacy. The Project has been supported by many leading foundations and donors, including the Bradley Foundation, Chiaroscuro Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Fieldstead & Company, Henry Luce Foundation, Luddy Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Our Sunday Visitor Institute, Papal Foundation, and the Raskob Foundation. 

He was the editor of a new edition of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Heart (St. Augustine’s Press, 2007). He joined John F. Crosby as co-translator of Hildebrand’s major philosophical work, The Nature of Love (St. Augustine’s Press, 2009). He edited Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2012), the first major volume of essays on von Hildebrand in two decades. Most recently he is the primary compiler, editor, and translator of Hildebrand’s anti-Nazi papers, My Battle Against Hitler (Random House, 2014). 

His work has been featured in both popular (e.g., The Daily Beast) and scholarly publications (Logos Journal). His numerous radio appearances have taken him from PRI’s The Takeaway to the Hugh Hewitt Show. He was host of He Dared Speak the Truth, a 14-part television series on the life of Dietrich von Hildebrand, which aired on EWTN (2014).

Son of an Austrian mother and an American father, his mother tongue was German. Both his undergraduate studies in philosophy, history, and literature (2000) as well as his graduate studies in philosophy (2001) were pursued at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. 

He was for many years a violinist. As a student of Daniel Heifetz, he was formed in the great violinistic traditions of Henryk Szeryng, David Oistrakh, and Ivan Galamian. 

He serves as a trustee of The Personalist Project. 

In 2010 he married Robin-Marie Bobak. Through their marriage—and all the more with the birth of their children Magdalene (2011), Robin (2013), John Henry, Jr. (2015), and Peter—he has found (or, again, been found by) an integration of the good, true, and beautiful far greater than any he has ever known.

Mark Roberts

Dr. Mark Roberts studied at the University of Rhode Island where he received a B.A. and M.A., and the University of Dallas where he received an M.A. and a Ph.D. He was a professor and Honors Faculty Fellow at the University of Rhode Island, and a member of the Faculty Senate from 1990 to 1992.

Professor Roberts came to Franciscan University of Steubenville in 1993.

He is a member of the American Philosophical Association, American Catholic Philosophical Association, North American Society of Early Phenomenology, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Southwestern Philosophical Society, and Society of Christian Philosophers. He has served on the Program Committee of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and was Vice-President of the Rhode Island Philosophical Society. In 2005 Prof. Roberts received the Alumni Teaching Award from Franciscan University, and has received a Fides et Ratio grant and several Faculty Enrichment grants. He is the former editor of the philosophy journal Quaestiones Disputatae. His work has been mainly in the areas of logic and philosophical logic, natural theology, Aquinas, von Hildebrand, and metaphysics.

Dr. Roberts retired in 2020.

Jules van Schaijik

Dr. Jules van Schaijik is the cofounder of the Personalist Project. He was Assistant Professor and Chairman of Philosophy at Ave Maria University. He was close friends and intellectual collaborator with Alice von Hildebrand, who spent summers in New Hampshire with the van Schaijiks and their five children.

John F. Crosby

Maria Wolter

Tim Hall

Tim Hall is K-12 Social Studies Instructional Specialist for Vance County Schools. He was formerly Director of Operations and Academics of Thales Academy which one of the largest private school management organizations in North Carolina. He is the author of several textbook supplements, curriculums, standards, and several popular history texts including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World History (Penguin, 2nd edn 2012) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Middle Ages (Penguin, 2009). He was the course administrator of the MOOC on Kierkegaard at Coursera entitled “Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity.” Some of his recent research focuses on the philosophy of Kierkegaard and non‐cognitive education which was published in a shorter form in Wiley- Blackwell’s Companion to Kierkegaard and religious literacy and diversity in education which is in development.As an educator, Dr. Hall has taught AP World History, AP European History, AP Psychology, and Medieval Studies. He has received numerous awards, including two schoolteacher studentships to Oxford University for curriculum development and research fellowships to the Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Dr. Hall has also collaborated with the College of William and Mary in Virginia in the development of curriculum materials for the teaching of the principle of separation of church and state in American history as an extension to a National Endowment for the Humanities seminar in which he participated.

Anne Snyder

Anne Snyder is the Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine and the host of Breaking Ground, a collaborative web commons created in 2020 to try to inspire a dynamic cross-section of thinkers and practitioners to respond to the major crises of the year with wisdom, hope and courage. She is the host of The Whole Person Revolution podcast and the author of The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape, published in 2019.

John F. Crosby

Josef Seifert

Professor Seifert received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Salzburg in 1969 and, under Professor Robert Spaemann, his habilitation from the University of Munich (Privatdozent) in 1975. He studied chiefly under Balduin Schwarz, the most distinguished German former student of Dietrich von Hildebrand, at the University of Salzburg, and under Gabriel Marcel in Paris. Already as a child (from age 3 on) he knew Hildebrand personally, because Seifert’s mother had been a student of Hildebrand in Munich and both of his parents were Hildebrand’s friends. He is the author of many books, and Europe’s leading student and teacher of Hildebrand’s philosophy.

Rabbi Mark Gottlieb

Derek S. Jefferys

Robert McNamara

Elizabeth C. Shaw

Mark K. Spencer

University of St Thomas, MN Professor of Philosophy

Research Areas: Philosophical Anthropology, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Philosophical Theology

Dr. Mark K. Spencer, Ph.D. is a Professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Spencer fell in love with philosophy in high school when he first encountered the writings of Albert Camus and St. Thomas Aquinas. He earned his Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, and his M.A. and B.A. from Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he first encountered the work of Dietrich von Hildebrand. He is the author of 2 books and over 60 papers and reviews, mostly focusing on the nature of the human person, beauty, and God’s relations to us. In his research, he above all tries to synthesize many traditions’ approaches to these topics, drawing on the scholastic, phenomenological, analytic, and Greek Patristic traditions. Among the things he takes greatest delight in is introducing students to the insights of these traditions, so as to help them better perceive and contemplate reality, for which he finds the work of von Hildebrand an indispensable guide. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Susanna, and their four children. Together, they especially enjoy hiking, camping, reading novels, watching films, gardening, and homeschooling.

John Henry Crosby

John Henry Crosby is a translator, writer, critic, and cultural entrepreneur. 

Late in 2003, searching for a life’s work that could integrate the quest for truth, the existential need for beauty, and the service of a great good, and beginning to despair of ever finding such a mission, he called Alice von Hildebrand to propose that he spend one year translating her late husband’s Aesthetics. Would she help, he asked.

She did, and her blessing transformed his one-year plan into lifelong mission that soon attracted the collaboration of others. Thus, the life’s work he had sought found him. Established in February 2004, the Hildebrand Project’s mission to renew culture has grown to encompass publications, events, fellowships, and online resources that draw on the continuing vitality of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thought and witness.

Under his leadership, the Hildebrand Project has become the world’s leading organization dedicated to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s legacy. The Project has been supported by many leading foundations and donors, including the Bradley Foundation, Chiaroscuro Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Fieldstead & Company, Henry Luce Foundation, Luddy Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Our Sunday Visitor Institute, Papal Foundation, and the Raskob Foundation. 

He was the editor of a new edition of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Heart (St. Augustine’s Press, 2007). He joined John F. Crosby as co-translator of Hildebrand’s major philosophical work, The Nature of Love (St. Augustine’s Press, 2009). He edited Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2012), the first major volume of essays on von Hildebrand in two decades. Most recently he is the primary compiler, editor, and translator of Hildebrand’s anti-Nazi papers, My Battle Against Hitler (Random House, 2014). 

His work has been featured in both popular (e.g., The Daily Beast) and scholarly publications (Logos Journal). His numerous radio appearances have taken him from PRI’s The Takeaway to the Hugh Hewitt Show. He was host of He Dared Speak the Truth, a 14-part television series on the life of Dietrich von Hildebrand, which aired on EWTN (2014).

Son of an Austrian mother and an American father, his mother tongue was German. Both his undergraduate studies in philosophy, history, and literature (2000) as well as his graduate studies in philosophy (2001) were pursued at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. 

He was for many years a violinist. As a student of Daniel Heifetz, he was formed in the great violinistic traditions of Henryk Szeryng, David Oistrakh, and Ivan Galamian. 

He serves as a trustee of The Personalist Project. 

In 2010 he married Robin-Marie Bobak. Through their marriage—and all the more with the birth of their children Magdalene (2011), Robin (2013), John Henry, Jr. (2015), and Peter—he has found (or, again, been found by) an integration of the good, true, and beautiful far greater than any he has ever known.

Christopher T. Haley

“Only the brave return to the source.” — a favorite line from a Hölderlin poem. For Christopher, the source was beauty. Philosophy has always captured his interest, but it was beauty that was his first love, that first broke his heart (and a broken heart the Lord will not refuse, Ps. 51). After many years in school studying philosophy at St. Edward’s University (where he discovered Catholicism) ancient languages at the University of Texas (where he converted from atheism to Catholicism), and the University of Dallas (where he was introduced to Christian Personalism) Christopher misread Aristotle’s Rhetoric and decided that he needed to do something “practical;” so he began working in teaching, marketing, and politics, striking out in new areas with innovative ideas drawn from classical sources (he has a restive habit of starting new projects and companies). 

But his restless soul brought him back to philosophy. He had heard of Dietrich von Hildebrand while studying St. Edith Stein at the University of Dallas, and was eagerly awaiting the publication of Hildebrand’s Aesthetics, when one day his mentor at UD suggested that he apply for a Summer Fellowship with the Hildebrand Project. So he dropped everything and applied. Now, Christopher has always had the strange practice of including his favorite poets and composers on his resume, and for once, it worked (he always knew it would!): at the Hildebrand Project, he finally found a place where a love for beauty mattered—and thus he returned to the source. 

At the end of his Summer Fellowship, he was so excited about the potential of the Hildebrand Project that he refused to leave, finding clever ways to insert himself into vital operations and creating entire program areas with no one to manage them but himself. As a result, he now oversees the Hildebrand Project’s publishing enterprise, marketing, communications, and has helped pioneer a number of innovative and successful programs. 

In his free time—when he gets free time—he likes to listen to classical music, write essays, ride two-wheeled vehicles, and build things. He also hosts a weekly theology symposium at a bar in his beloved state of Texas.  

John F. Crosby

Jonathan J. Sanford

Mark Roberts

Dr. Mark Roberts studied at the University of Rhode Island where he received a B.A. and M.A., and the University of Dallas where he received an M.A. and a Ph.D. He was a professor and Honors Faculty Fellow at the University of Rhode Island, and a member of the Faculty Senate from 1990 to 1992.

Professor Roberts came to Franciscan University of Steubenville in 1993.

He is a member of the American Philosophical Association, American Catholic Philosophical Association, North American Society of Early Phenomenology, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Southwestern Philosophical Society, and Society of Christian Philosophers. He has served on the Program Committee of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and was Vice-President of the Rhode Island Philosophical Society. In 2005 Prof. Roberts received the Alumni Teaching Award from Franciscan University, and has received a Fides et Ratio grant and several Faculty Enrichment grants. He is the former editor of the philosophy journal Quaestiones Disputatae. His work has been mainly in the areas of logic and philosophical logic, natural theology, Aquinas, von Hildebrand, and metaphysics.

Dr. Roberts retired in 2020.