Our third interdisciplinary Magi Conference will explore the question "What is a Good Human Life?" through the lenses of World, Self, Community, and God. The conference will be structured around a series of conversations between psychologists, philosophers, and theologians, who will examine the nature of human flourishing from diverse disciplinary perspectives and consider how the insights of each of these disciplines might contribute to work in the others.
The keynote address will be given by Kristján Kristjánsson, Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics at the University of Birmingham, and Deputy Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. He has written widely on themes in moral education, educational psychology, and moral philosophy and is the author of over 100 articles and several books, including Virtues and Vice in Positive Psychology (2015), Flourishing as the Aim of Education (2019), and most recently, Phronesis: Retrieving Practical Wisdom in Psychology, Philosophy, and Education (2024).
The conference will also feature four panels::
World
Darcia Narvaez (University of Notre Dame) and Emily Dumler Winckler (St. Louis University)
Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Prof. Narvaez’ research explores questions of species-typical and species-atypical development in terms of wellbeing, morality, and sustainable wisdom. She has published dozens of academic journal articles and chapters and over twenty books, including Restoring the Kinship Worldview, The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities and Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, which won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award.
Emily Dumler Winckler is an Assistant Professor of Constructive Theology in the Department of Theology at St. Louis University. Her research interests include social, moral, and political constructive theology, Chrisitan ethics, virtue theory, modern religious thoguht, social theory, and science and theology.
Self
Sarah Schnitker (Baylor University) and Christian Miller (Wake Forest University)
Sarah Schnitker is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University. Her research interests include virtue and character development in adolescents and emerging adults, with a focus on the role of spirituality and religion in virtue formation. She has published more than 75 peer-review articles and edited chapters, and she has procured more than $10 million in funding as a principal investigator on multiple research grants. Schnitker is an Associate Editor for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Research in Personality, and a co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.
Christian Miller is the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. Much of his current research is at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. He recently directed The Honesty Project, thanks to a $4.4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. This project studied the philosophy of honesty and the science of honesty.
Community
David Cloutier (Catholic University of America) and Katherine McAuliffe (Boston College)
David Cloutier is an Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology/Ethics and Moral Theology/Ethics Area Director. He is the author of four books, including the award-winning The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age, which received an honorable mention in the 2015 PROSE Awards for academic press and a third place in the 2016 Catholic Press Association awards. He is particularly interested in connecting Catholic moral theology to the best research about human behavior from the social sciences, and received a $40,000 grant from The Happiness and Well-Being Project at Saint Louis University to collaborate on publications on the ethics of virtue and human agency with psychologist Anthony Ahrens of American University.
Katherine McAuliffe is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Boston College. Her work focuses on the development and evolution of cooperation. Her primary research investigates how children develop an understanding of the norms governing cooperation and a willingness to enforce them. Her work on children is situated within a broader cross-cultural and comparative context that seeks to understand how and why the cognition supporting cooperation evolved.
God & Transcendence
Matt Rossano (Southeastern Louisiana University) and Stephen Pope (Boston College)
Matt Rossano is a Professor of Psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University. His research interests include evolution and human nature, evolutionary psychology, consciousness, evolution of the mind/brain, religion and science, evolution of religion.
Stephen Pope is a Professor of Theology at Boston College. His research interests include Christian ethics and evolutionary theory, love and justice in contemporary Christian ethics, charity and natural law in Aquinas, and Roman Catholic social teachings.
Concluding Remarks
James Pawelski (University of Pennsylvania)
James Pawelski is Professor of Practice and Director of Education in the Applied Positive Psychology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Fulbright scholar and holds a PhD in philosophy. Prof. Pawelski is the Author of The Dynamic Individualism of William James and he has served as the editor of the philosophy section of the Oxford Handbook of Happiness, co-editor of The Eudaimonic Turn: Well-Being in Literary Studies, and co-author (with his wife, Suzann Pileggi Pawelski) of Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love that Lasts.
Date: Thursday, July 25, 3pm-Friday, July 26, 8pm
Location: University of Pennsylvania
Registration:
Early bird registration (through June 15): $15
Regular Registration: $30
Student Registration: FREE. If you are a student, please email Caroline Arnold (carnold@collegiuminstitute.org) from your university email address to receive a discount code.
Click the button below to register.
This conference is co-sponsored by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science.