Gonzaga University professor of philosophy Doug Kries has received a $154,548 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in collaboration with two other universities to present a 2014 Summer Institute for College and University Teachers at Gonzaga, titled “Medieval Political Philosophy: Islamic, Jewish, and Christian.”
The Institute will be held at Gonzaga’s Foley Center Library from June 16 through July 11, 2014. Kries will serve as a co-director along with Joshua Parens of University of Dallas and Joseph Macfarland of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md. Kries also will serve as a lead faculty member with Professors Haim Kreisel of Ben Gurion University in Israel and Charles Butterworth at University of Maryland.
Some two-dozen teachers in higher education nationwide will be NEH Summer Scholars for the Institute, according to a press release. The Institute will prepare the scholars to teach undergraduate courses addressing all three of the religious traditions within which medieval political philosophy emerged: Islamic, Jewish and Christian. Kries said medieval political philosophy is especially important because it was when ancient political philosophy encountered the three revealed religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, according to a press release.
The Institute is meant to advance the NEH’s goal of building bridges between cultures by comparing the medieval monotheistic religions on such questions as the nature of religious law and the relationship between political regimes and religious assemblies. The NEH conducts a number of similar institutes each summer.
