2025 Veritas Conference – The Humanities at Providence College

2025 Providence College Veritas Conference

Great Things Beyond Searching Out

Transcendence in the Modern World

Spring Conference | April 25-26, 2025 | Providence College

The Providence College Humanities Program is pleased to invite abstract submissions for its 4th annual Veritas Conference. Keynote speakers include James K.A. Smith (Calvin College), Gregory Pine, OP (Thomistic Institute), Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine University), Jennifer Frey (University of Tulsa), and Michael Hanby (John Paul II Institute).

Conference Registration

About the Conference

It has been argued that we are characteristically “modern” – or characteristically “secular” – in that we are able to imagine significance for our lives (individually and collectively) in a constructed social space that frames our lives entirely within a natural (rather than supernatural) order. This is to say, the modern social “imaginary” precludes transcendence. In the fourth annual Veritas Conference, we propose to examine the concept of “transcendence.”

What do we mean by the term: is it simply belief in the existence of gods, spirits, or a “higher power” – or what? Why is the preclusion of transcendence an intellectually plausible stance for many? Has transcendence actually disappeared from our lives – or is its supposed demise just a useful conceit? (And if the latter, then for whom is it useful – who benefits from a world bereft of transcendence?) Does modern scientific method itself or the specific results of scientific research necessitate the loss of a sense of transcendence? Where might a sense of transcendence still impinge on our modern lives – e.g., via art, or nature, or interpersonal love? May (must?) politics be open to some transcendence in order to be fully human? What resources does the Christian tradition – especially, the Catholic and Dominican tradition – have for recovering and articulating a renewed sense of “transcendence” in modernity? These and similar questions are the proposed topic for the Humanities Program’s fourth Annual Veritas Conference (2025),

For questions or inquiries about the conference, email veritas.conference@providence.edu.

Our Keynote Speakers

James K.A. Smith – “Epiphanies: Transcendence, Contemplation, and Contemporary Art”

Dr. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University where he holds the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair. He is the award-winning author of a number of influential books including Desiring the Kingdom (2009), How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019), The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology (2021) and, most recently, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (2022). He is currently at work on a book about mysticism and contemporary art.

Fr. Greory Pine – “Agency Beyond Optimization: Transcendence in Human Freedom”

Fr. Pine teaches Dogmatic and Moral Theology at the Dominican House of Studies and works as an Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He was ordained a priest in 2016 and holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the author of several books and articles including Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly. He is a regular contributor to the podcasts Pints with Aquinas, Catholic Classics, and Godsplaining.

Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson – “Wonder, Witness & Wanting”

Dr. Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. The author and editor of several books, including The Scandal of Holiness, Dr. Wilson has received a handful of awards including book of the year in culture and the arts from Christianity Today, the Hiett Prize in Humanities and Culture, and the Emerging Public Intellectual Award from CCCU and other partners. She is a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum.

Dr. Jennifer Frey – “Suffering, Sacrifice, and Transcendence”

Dr. Frey is inaugural Dean of the Honors College at The University of Tulsa, where she is also a professor of philosophy. Her research focuses on moral psychology, action, and ethics. She has edited two volumes: Self-Transcence and Virtue (Routledge) and Practical Truth (OUP), and she is working on a third volume titled Practical Wisdom (also OUP). She has written popular essays in First Things, Plough, The Point, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. She hosts a literature, philosophy, and theology podcast titled Sacred and Profane Love.

Dr. Michael Hanby – “Everyone is a Platonist”

Dr. Hanby is an Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy of Science at the John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of America where he has taught since 2007. Writing at the intersection of metaphysics, theology, politics, technology, and science, he is the author two books, Augustine and Modernity (2003) and No God, No Science? Theology, Cosmology, Biology (2013). He is currently working on a book provisionally titled On Being…Human, Catholic, American.

Conference Overview

Plenary and Breakout Sessions will be held in the Ruane Center for the Humanities (Providence College Campus Map)

Friday, April 25

4:00 – 5:15 p.m.
Welcome and John F. Fay ’68 Plenary Address: Jessica Hooten Wilson
“Wonder, Witness, and Wanting”
5:15 – 6:15 p.m.
Humanities Forum Reception

Saturday, April 26

8:00 a.m.
Mass at St. Pius V Church (240 Eaton St., Providence, RI – across the street from PC campus)
8:15 – 9:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast in the Fiondella Great Room
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Second Plenary Address: Gregory Pine, OP
“Agency Beyond Optimization: Transcendence in Human Freedom”
10:15 – 11:15 p.m.
David McPherson and Ryan Hanley
“The Love and Transcendence Project”
11:30 – 12:30
Third Plenary Address: Jennifer Frey
“Suffering, Sacrifice, and Transcendence”
12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
Lunch in Raymond Dining Hall
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Breakout Sessions (Roster Forthcoming)
3:45 – 4:45 p.m.
Fourth Plenary Address: Michael Hanby
“Everyone is a Platonist”
5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Concluding Plenary Address: James K.A. Smith
“Epiphanies: Transcendence, Contemplation, and Contemporary Art”
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Dinner in the Fiondella Great Room