In this seminar we will explore gratitude as a fundamental moral disposition without which no one can really be happy.

Our culture today is fraught by questions about gratitude. How do we receive in gratitude the goods of our own traditions despite their evils, of which we are increasingly aware? Can we cultivate gratitude in a social-media world of envy, isolation, and self-assertion? Why should we be grateful in the midst of great suffering?

In this seminar, we will attempt to answer these questions and to offer gratitude as an antidote to other challenges, such as feelings of loneliness, resentment, envy, and the self-hatred that oppresses so many today. We will show how gratitude guards against despair, and resists the nihilist attitude that fails to see the value of anything.

Ultimately, we will propose gratitude as an essential condition of human happiness and human flourishing.  In so doing, we will explore the relations between gratitude and contemplation, stewardship, and material creation; between gratitude and wonder, creativity, and invention; between gratitude and beauty, hope, and joy; and between gratitude, self-love, and the love of God. We will draw on ideas in Sts. Augustine and Aquinas, Søren Kierkegaard, Romano Guardini, Joseph Pieper, Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II, Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand, Gabriel Marcel, Max Scheler, Roger Scruton, Russell Kirk, and many others. We will also draw on artistic expressions of gratitude, notably in poetry (e.g., Gerard Manley Hopkins) and music (e.g. Schubert). Several keynote addresses will be given by John F. Crosby, Jonathan J. Sanford, and James Matthew Wilson. A full list of faculty can be found on the event website.