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The Personalism of Edith Stein Book Launch

January 24, 2024 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST

Join the Hildebrand Project on Wednesday, January 24, at 12 PM ET for this book launch for Dr. Robert McNamara’s new book, The Personalism of Edith Stein: A Synthesis of Thomism and Phenomenology, published by CUA Press.

Dr. McNamara is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville and a Hildebrand Project Associated Scholar.

This event is being co-sponsored by Catholic University of America Press.

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Dr. McNamara will be joined by three distinguished professors to discuss his work and the thought of Edith Stein.

Dr. John F. Crosby | Franciscan University of Steubenville

Dr. Mette Lebech | University of Maynooth, Ireland

Fr. James Dominic Brent | Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies

Associated Scholar

Robert McNamara
Senior Scholar

John F. Crosby
Maynooth University

Dr. Mette Lebech
Associated Scholar

Fr. James Dominic Brent, O.P
Associated Scholar

Robert McNamara

Robert is an Associate Professor of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he teaches philosophy and theology, an associate member of faculty of the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, an Associated Scholar of the Hildebrand Project, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland, for which he currently holds the position of secretary. Robert was educated at the National University of Ireland Galway, where he studied physics and applied science, Maynooth University and St. Patrick’s College, where he studied philosophy and theological studies, the International Theological Institute, where he received a master’s degree in the theology of marriage and family, and Liverpool Hope University, where he completed a doctorate of philosophy detailing Edith Stein’s engagement with the thought of Thomas Aquinas in her mature philosophy of the human person. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland.

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Research Areas:

Ethics, Moral Philosophy, Metaphysics, Personalism, Edith Stein, Thomas Aquinas (Thomism)

More about Robert McNamara
Select Bibliography

‘The Concept of Christian Philosophy in Edith Stein’, in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 94.2 (2020), pp. 323-46.

‘The Cognition of the Human Individual in the Mature Thought of Edith Stein’, in Philosophical News, a Publication of the European Society for Moral Philosophy, ed. Elisa Grimi, 16 (forthcoming).

‘Human Individuality in Stein’s Mature Works’, in Edith Steins Herausforderung heutiger Anthropologie, ed. by Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz and Mette Lebech (Heiligenkreuz: Be&Be, 2017), pp. 124-39

‘Essence in Edith Stein’s Festschrift Dialogue’, in Alles Wesentliche lässt sich nicht schreiben, ed. by Andreas Speer and Stephen Regh (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2016), pp. 175-94. Paper Presentations:

‘Edith Stein’s Understanding of Human Flourishing’, St. Saviour’s Symposium, Dominican House of Studies, Dublin, Ireland (2020).

‘Edith Stein’s Understanding of Human Unity and Bodily Formation’, 5th biennial International Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein (IASPES), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (2019).

‘Edith Stein’s Understanding of the Soul as Form of the Body’, The International Theological Institute, Trumau, Austria (2018).

‘The Cognition of the Human Individual’, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, U.S.A. (2018).

‘Individuality in Stein Reading Aquinas’, 3rd biennial International Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein (IASPES), University of Vienna, Austria (2016).

‘Essence in Husserl and Aquinas’, International Conference: ‘What’s essential can’t be written: Edith Stein’s Life and Thought as reflected in her oeuvre’, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (2014).

Senior Scholar

John F. Crosby

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy

Research Areas:

Personalism, John Henry Newman, John Paul II, Dietrich von Hildebrand

Prof. Crosby was himself a student of Dietrich Hildebrand. Besides writing major studies on the thought of John Henry Newman, Max Scheler, and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, and making his own contributions to personalist philosophy, Prof. Crosby has devoted his long and distinguished academic career—first at the University of Dallas, then at the International Academy of Philosophy, and currently at Franciscan University of Steubenville—to introducing his students to the intellectual legacy of Hildebrand, and also to making Hildebrand better known in scholarly circles. Prof. Crosby was the translator of the English edition of  Hildebrand’s philosophical masterpiece, The Nature of Love, and he also serves as the General Editor of all our present and future translations of Hildebrand’s works.

Maynooth University

Dr. Mette Lebech

Mette Lebech holds her degrees from the Universities of Copenhagen, Louvain-la-neuve and Leuven. She has taught in Maynooth University since 1998 and before that for 3 years at the University of Copenhagen, where she also was a member of the Centre for Ethics and Law. She has worked principally on the themes of Human Dignity and the Philosophy of Edith Stein and is past founding President of the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein (IASPES).

Associated Scholar

Fr. James Dominic Brent, O.P

Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Fr. James Dominic Brent, O.P. was born and raised in Michigan. He pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in Philosophy and completed his doctorate in Philosophy at Saint Louis University on the epistemic status of Christian beliefs according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. He has articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Natural Theology in the Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas on “God’s Knowledge and Will”, and an article forthcoming on “Thomas Aquinas” in the Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology. He earned his STL from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, and was ordained a priest in the same year. He taught in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America from 2010- 2014 and spent the year of 2014-2015 doing full-time itinerant preaching on college campuses across the United States. He now teaches full-time at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception.

Research Areas:

Epistemology; Aquinas, Knowledge,

More about Fr. James Dominic Brent, O.P

Each speaker will highlight an aspect of the book, followed by Q&A amongst the panelists and with the online audience.

The event is open to anyone. Please feel free to invite your friends and colleagues.

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