News & Announcements
07/19/2010
Lecture Series
Swift's Kick at Modernist Thought: Satire and the Defense of Tradition in Gulliver's Travels
By Dutton Kearney, Ph.D.
Aquinas College
Date: Wednesday, October 20
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Aquinas College Main Building, Room 103
RSVP: Please email lectures@aquinascollege.edu or call (615) 383-3230 to reserve a seat.
In Swift's eighteenth century, as in our twenty-first, a war was being fought between the "ancients" and the "moderns," between those rooted in the traditions of the West and those seeking to uproot tradition to make way for dangerous, and ultimately destructive, new ideas. Swift's satire on the threats posed by the Enlightenment and the embryonic spirit of secular fundamentalism makes Gulliver's Travels relevant for today's dialogue between modern critics and defenders of tradition.
Dr. Dutton Kearney teaches literature and theology courses in the Aquinas College Liberal Arts program and was voted "Instructor of the Year" by peer-election in 2008. A member of several academic and cultural organizations, he is a frequent presenter at academic conferences and has recently published scholarly articles on St. Thomas More, Jacques Maritain, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Dr. Kearney holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Texas at Austin, two master's degrees (in English and in Theological Studies) from the University of Dallas, and a doctorate in Literature from the Institute for Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas. In addition, he received the mandatum from the Most Reverend David R. Choby, Bishop of Nashville, in 2007.
In 2008, Ignatius Press named Dr. Kearney one of just ten editors of its Ignatius Critical Editions textbook series; his new edition of the Jonathan Swift classic Gulliver's Travels was released in April 2010. In addition to classroom instruction, Dr. Kearney is currently engaged in several publication projects, including a collaborative effort with a business program colleague to produce a textbook integrating Catholic Social Teaching and business management principles.
Book signing immediately following lecture.
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Quoting . . .
For over a century, the St. Cecilia Congregation has owned and administered academic institutions in which students come to a deeper understanding of their faith, their heritage and their responsibilities as members of society. (Aquinas catalog)