Legal Humanities
How can law — its substance and practice — help us to become more fully human? What might happen if legal structures and institutions were envisioned as instruments not only for justice but also for mercy and forgiveness, reconciliation and community?
The Legal Humanities program seeks to explore the relationship between law and the good life.
What can wisdom of the past and present offer to us for addressing the legal challenges of today, both at a personal and systemic level? How might we begin to formulate, as a community, what it would mean to be a good lawyer?
Collegium’s Legal Humanities Project draws together faculty and students to explore these questions and more as they together envision a human-centered approach to justice and the law through the Legal Humanities Fellowship Program.
Legal Humanities Fellowship Program
The Legal Humanities Fellowship program, which debuted in Spring 2020, invites an intimate cohort of fellows to participate in six discussion seminars that explore the relationship between law and the good life. Each session is co-facilitated by academics and professionals in law, history, and philosophy. By the end of the semester, fellows produce a statement of academic findings and/or vocational discernment. To learn more about each semester of the Fellowship, click one of the buttons below.
Past Events
Humanizing the Professions: How the Humanities Can Transform the Practice of Finance, Medicine, and Law
This panel explored how interdisciplinary reflection can help de-silo the professional schools for the common good. Our panelists include the Directors of Collegium Institute’s Philosophy of Finance, Medical Humanities and Legal Humanities Projects, which draw together students, scholars, and practitioners to explore what it means to align professional practice with the tradition of virtue ethics, integral humanism, and the search for wisdom. To view the video from this event, click the button below.
Dual Allegiances: A Panel Conversation
The Collegium Institute hosted a special lunchtime event at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School exploring Dual Allegiances in America: Christian, Jewish & Muslim Perspectives. This event sought to foster dialogue on the relationships between religious traditions and civic identity, citizenship, and the American legal tradition. The panel featured Drs. Beth Wenger (University of Pennsylvania), Michael Breidenbach (Ave Maria University), Adnan Zulfiqar (Rutgers Law School), and Rogers Smith (University of Pennsylvania).
In the World, But Not of the World: A Lunch Conversation with Lord Alton
The Collegium Institute and Penn Christian Legal Society welcomed Lord David Alton, MP to share his experience as a person of faith in an increasingly secularized sector of public service, specifically addressing his work on the political and legal issues of life and religious liberty both in the UK and globally.