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Summer Residency

Hildebrand Project Summer Residency
July 1-9, 2024
Franciscan University of Steubenville

The deadline for the 2024 Residency has passed. To express interest in the 2025 Residency, click here.

The Hildebrand Project is pleased to announce our sixth annual Residency!

The Residency was launched in 2017 to support and expand the academic community devoted to the thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand and the tradition of Christian personalism broadly. We do this by enabling students and scholars to work alongside our Senior Scholars—former students of Dietrich von Hildebrand and/or John Paul II—and Associated Scholars, who are doing new and important work in personalist scholarship. In this way, we seek to pass the flame to future generations who will continue to reveal Hildebrand and personalism within the perennial tradition.

The Residency is an intensive program for advanced students and scholars who are working on MA theses, Ph.D. dissertations, habilitations, books, chapters, or scholarly articles principally focused on Hildebrand or in some way substantively engaged with his thought (for example, a dissertation chapter focused on Hildebrand). We are especially interested in supporting research that has never been publicly presented.

We recognize that many universities do not have faculty with expertise on Hildebrand (or other personalists, too) and that this may prevent some students from writing an MA or dissertation on Hildebrand. The Residency exists to overcome this obstacle.

The Residency is not limited to those working exclusively on Hildebrand. We welcome applications from students and scholars working on kindred spirits (like Karol Wojtyla, Max Scheler, and Edith Stein), on great figures in the tradition (like Aristotle and Aquinas), or on any thinker or set of issues, provided that the work in progress includes Hildebrand as a substantive interlocutor and/or meaningfully engages the personalist or phenomenological tradition.

Residency Faculty

Senior Scholar

John F. Crosby
Senior Scholar

Rocco Buttiglione
Senior Scholar

Josef Seifert
Associated Scholar

Martin Cajthaml
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.

Senior Scholar

Rocco Buttiglione

A trusted collaborator of Pope St. John Paul II, and is an authority on his philosophical anthropology. His book Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man who became Pope John Paul II is a fundamental work on the pope’s early philosophy. A member of the Italian Parliament for over two decades, he serves on the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and holds the John Paul II Chair for Philosophy and History of European Institutions at the Lateran University in Rome. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Hildebrand Project.

Senior Scholar

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.

Associated Scholar

Martin Cajthaml

Cajthaml studied philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague from 1991-1993. He went on to study philosophy and psychology at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Lichtenstein (IAP). In 2000, he earned his PhD in philosophy at the IAP with the dissertation Kritik des Relativismus. In 2000-2007 he worked as assistant-professor at the IAP. He is a full professor and the Head of the Department of Philosophy and Patrology at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology of Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Palacký University Olomouc

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Research Areas:

Philosophical Ethics; Intellectual and Spiritual Roots of European Culture; Value Theory

More about Martin Cajthaml
Select Bibliography

Cajthaml, M., Vohánka V. The Moral Philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand . Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2019.

Cajthaml, M. “Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Moral Epistemology.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92, no. 4 (2018): 615-640

Cajthaml, M. “Von Hildebrand on Acting against One’s Better Knowledge: A Comparison with Plato.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91, no. 4 (2017): 637–653.

Cajthaml, M. “Von Hildebrand’s Concept of Value.” Studia Neoaristotelica 15, no. 1 (2018): 95-130.

Cajthaml, M. “Love as a Value Response. Von Hildebrand´s Philosophy of Love.” Reflexe 39 (2010): 19-33.

Cajthaml, M. “Moral Virtue according to von Hildebrand with Respect to Aristotle.” Reflexe 43 (2012), 59-78.

Cajthaml, M. “The Moral Value of Emotions in Respect to Aristotle, Kant, and von Hildebrand.” Studia Neoaristotelica 12, no. 3 (2015): 5-25.

Cajthaml, M. “Value Blindness according to von Hildebrand.” Studia Neoaristotelica 2 (Series bohemoslovaca), no. 5/3 (2017): 39-67.

Cajthaml, M. “Love as Desire of the Good or Love as Value-Response? Plato and von Hildebrand on the Essence of Love.“ AITHÉR, no. 4 (2016): 54-65.

Format

The Residency in Summer 2024 is not the beginning but the culmination of a process beginning in March 2024. Upon being admitted to the Residency and matched with a Senior Scholar or Associated Scholar, a participant will meet virtually with the scholar and receive initial comments on their work in progress. 

For the in-person portion of the program, the daily weekday schedule will be focused on research and mentorship, with group discussions of work-in-progress, mini-discussion colloquia on core personalist texts,  private consultations with our faculty, and time for continued study. Professional development sessions will be offered, with sessions on topics like “The Academic Job Market” and “Dissertation 101.” The schedule will include breaks for personal reflection and prayer.

How to Apply

Participation in the Residency is competitive, and by application; with a limited number of seats, this means we will not be able to accept every application.  

Before submitting an application, applicants are encouraged to share their research project with our Programs Manager, Cecilia Cervantes, to ensure the project qualifies for this program. Research proposals are required for admission to the Residency.

Applications open on October 12, 2023, Hildebrand’s and Stein’s birthdays! The application and travel scholarship deadline is February 15, 2024. Please note a letter of recommendation (in English) is required to be considered for travel scholarships. Letters of recommendation should be sent to events@hildebrandproject.org

Application decisions will be communicated by February 23, 2024, with accepted attendees confirming their attendance by March 1. Please note that all works-in-progress need to be submitted for initial review and feedback by senior faculty by March 15. Participants will submit their amended drafts by June 1 for distribution for residency-wide review.

Cost to Attend, Room and Board, and Travel

The Residency is free to attend for all accepted candidates. It will be held at the Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH, where participants will be lodged in university housing. Dormitory accommodations will include private rooms with dorm restrooms. The Hildebrand Project is unable to provide meals and lodging for participants’ spouses and families. Participants will have access to the university library, internet, and other basic amenities. All costs for room and board are included.

A shuttle to and from the Pittsburgh International Airport will be provided. Parking will be available on campus for those who drive.

For those traveling from outside the US,  the procurement of a visa and current passport is the responsibility of the applicant. The Hildebrand Project is unable to assist in attaining a visiting visa.

Travel Scholarship Opportunities

While limited scholarships for travel are available, the Hildebrand Project cannot offer travel scholarships to all applicants. Priority will be given to applicants with a compelling research interest in Hildebrand’s thought.

Scholarship requests are included on the application, due February 15, 2024. When applying for travel aid, please be specific with your request. Please note that a letter of recommendation (in English) is required to be considered for travel scholarships. Letters can be submitted to events@hildebrandproject.org

For those traveling from outside the US, the Hildebrand Project cannot provide support in attaining a visiting visa. The procurement of a visa and current passport is the responsibility of the applicant.

July 1 9:00 am – July 9 5:00 pm EDT