Academy of Catholic Thought and Imagination

The Academy of Catholic Thought and Imagination (ACTI) at Loyola Marymount University is a community of scholars who work in dialogue with the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition by developing, examining, communicating, or otherwise engaging the resources of Catholic thought and imagination, especially as it is informed by the Jesuit vision of Ignatius of Loyola. The Academy is a hub for scholarship, interdisciplinary research, pedagogy, and outreach on LMU’s campus and in the southwest United States.^[1] ACTI sponsors and co-sponsors events, supports interdisciplinary dialogue within the university, and publishes academic work promoting its mission.

Location[edit]

ACTI's offices are located on the 4th floor of the University Hall at Loyola Marymount University's campus in West Los Angeles near the cities of Playa Vista, Westchester, Santa Monica and Culver City. In collaboration with similar organizations, ACTI holds its events on the campus of Loyola Marymount University.

History[edit]

ACTI was instituted in April 2014 at the behest of then-university President David W. Burcham^[2] for the purpose of fulfilling one of the goals of the university's strategic plan:^[3] To create an interdisciplinary center that will build collaborations with and serve as a coordinating hub for academic departments, centers, and programs that promote research, study, and dialogue on faith, reason, social justice, and contemporary society.^[4] A committee put together by Rev. Allan Deck, S.J., (then) Casassa Chair for Catholic Social Values, and Dr. Joseph LaBrie, Special Assistant to the President, developed a plan for the institute, and Dr. LaBrie was appointed to the position of Interim Director. Dr. Brian Treanor was appointed Academic Director in March 2015.

Organization and Leadership[edit]

ACTI consists of a faculty board representative of the diverse disciplines of study at Loyola Marymount committed to interdisciplinary academics. The organization is directed by tenured professor and researcher at LMU Brian Treanor, PhD. Dr. Treanor, awarded the position of academic directorship in 2014, was Professor of Philosophy, Daum Professor of the Liberal Arts, and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Loyola Marymount University, where he taught and researched since 2003. He received his Ph.D. from Boston College where he studied with Richard Kearney and Jacques Taminiaux. His dissertation focused on various ways of conceiving divine and human otherness, drawing on Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish philosophers. Dr. Treanor’s work takes its cue from the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, but remains consciously interdisciplinary by engaging theology, literature, poetry, psychology, ecology, and other disciplines. He is the author or editor of six books; among his recent works are Emplotting Virtue (SUNY 2014), Interpreting Nature (co-editor, Fordham 2013), and Carnal Hermeneutics (Fordham 2015). Notably, Dr. Treanor is also well known for excellence in the classroom; he has received several teaching awards—including the President’s Fritz B. Burns Teaching Award.^[5]

Dr. Treanor offers a wide range of advanced courses in hermeneutics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of literature, and environmental philosophy, as well as core classes in Environmental Ethics, Philosophical Inquiry, and, most recently, LMU’s new Freshmen First Year Seminars. With colleagues in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, he has recently launched the Great Books Learning Community. He has twice been honored by the Associated Students of LMU as Teacher of the Year and was given the university’s highest honor: the President’s Fritz B. Burns Teaching Award in 2011.

In support of LMU's mission, Professor Treanor has served on the Committee for Mission and Identity, Western Conversations in Jesuit Higher Education, the Catholic Studies Advisory Council, and New Faculty Orientation. Beyond LMU, he was a participant in the Collegium Colloquy on Faith and the Intellectual Life (2001) and served on the Executive Committees of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Gabriel Marcel Society, the International Association of Environmental Philosophy, and the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition.

To ensure synergy among various related initiatives at LMU, BCLA Dean Robbin Crabtree appointed Dr. Treanor to a term as the Casassa Chair of Social Values when he was appointed Academic Director of the Academy of Catholic Thought and Imagination. The decision to link the Academy with the Casassa Chair highlights the strategic importance of the Academy as a hub for high quality intellectual and creative activity in dialogue with the Catholic intellectual and imaginative traditions at LMU.^[6]

Activities & Events[edit]

The Academy sponsors a number of events throughout the year. On March 11, 2015, ACTI sponsored its inaugural event: "Science, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling", a lecture by Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] This was followed by a round-table discussion on September 17, 2015, on Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si′ with Fr. Thomas Rausch, S.J., Dr. Scott Cameron, Dr. Christopher Chapple, Dr. Sean D'Evelyn, Dr. James Landry, and Dr. Traci Voyles.^[11] On September 30, 2015, the Academy co-sponsored with the Office of the President the Academic Inaugural Lecture for President Timothy Law Snyder, PhD., 16th president of Loyola Marymount University. Dr. John Haught, Landegger Distinguished Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, spoke on Laudato Si′ and whether Pope Francis's hope for a cosmic future is compatible with current scientific understandings of nature.

References[edit]

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[1] ttp://academics.lmu.edu/acti/missionvision/actimissionandvision/

[2] ttp://magazine.lmu.edu/archive/2015/burcham-years

[3] "Strategic Plan Table of Contents". academics.lmu.edu. Retrieved 2015-10-16.

[4] ttp://academics.lmu.edu/acti/missionvision/letterfrompresidentburcham/

[5] ttp://faculty.lmu.edu/briantreanor/

[6] ttp://academics.lmu.edu/acti/aboutus/academicdirector/

[7] ttp://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/11/11/vatican-astronomer-sagan-medal

[8] ttp://scicom.ucsc.edu/publications/QandA/2008/consolmagno.html

[9] ttps://jesuitstories.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/consolmagno/

[10] ttp://academics.lmu.edu/acti/newsevents/march112015-sciencereligionandtheartofstorytelling/

[11] ttp://academics.lmu.edu/acti/newsevents/sept172015-carefortheeartharoundtablediscussiononpopefrancisecologicalencyclical/

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