Current Projects

 

Newman Studies

This permanent, core project of the Newman Centre has the aim of supporting research on the life, work, thought and legacy of St. John Henry Newman, with a particular focus on Newman's 'Dublin writings' (1851-9) and the history and legacy of the Catholic University of Ireland. Newman's Dublin writings include his ‘Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education’, which eventually constituted the first part of his famous The Idea of a University Defined and illustrated published in London in 1873, and his two-volume My Campaign in Ireland. 

The Newman Studies project is committed to holding at least one major public-facing event on Newman's life, work, thought and legacy every year. For instance, in 2022, the project organised a two-day conference on 19 and 29 October entitled Newman's Idea of a University: Then and Now, co-organised with the Notre Dame Newman Centre for Faith and Reason:

 

 

In 2024, with generous support from UCD School of Philosophy, the project hosted a major two-day international philosophy conference in Dublin on the relationship between the epistemological theories of John Henry Newman and major 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, entitled Wittgenstein, Newman, and Hinge Epistemology. The conference included presentations from over twenty speakers Irish and international speakers:

 

 

 

Our Newman Studies project is generously supported by the Newman Trust and Newman Society, which maintains the Newman Research Library in UCD’s historic Newman House (home of the Museum of Literature Ireland). With the generous support of the Newman Trust, the Newman Studies project also funds annual Newman MA Scholarships for students at UCD whose Masters research draws on Newman's work. For a list of previous Newman MA Scholars and details on how to apply for a scholarship, please go to the Research section of this site. 

 

Religion and Society

This interdisciplinary project is led by Prof. Maeve Cooke (UCD School of Philosophy) and Assoc. Prof. Daniel Esmonde Deasy (UCD School of Philosophy). The aim of the project is to foster and support interdisciplinary research on religion and faith in Ireland, and in particular, research that addresses Ireland's future in relation to its cultural and religious past and present.

The project brings together researchers from many different Schools in UCD, including Archaeology, Law, Sociology, Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, Philosophy, Politics and International Affairs, History, Education, and Classics.

One important research strand of this project is Islam and Ireland, a joint-project of the UCD Newman Centre; the Notre Dame Clingen Family Centre for the Study of Modern Ireland; and the Notre Dame Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. Islam and Ireland was launched in 2022 with a day-long workshop at the Royal Irish Academy, and is currently supporting the production of a new publication Islam in Ireland Today, co-authored by Prof. Roja Fazaeli (Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway) and Assoc. Prof. James Carr (Dept. of Sociology, University of Limerick) to be launched in 2025. See the News and Events section of this website for more details.

 

 

Another important research strand of this project is Newman and the Contemporary University, which investigates the nature of university and higher education, and in particular, the application of John Henry Newman's vision of higher education as expressed in his seminal Idea of a University of 1852 to the contemporary models of higher education. Assoc. Prof. Áine Mahon (UCD School of Education) leads this project and is currently co-supervising (with Centre Director Daniel Esmonde Deasy) a PhD student working on Newman and the Contemporary University, fully funded by a grant from the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. 

Finally, this project provides support for various one-off conferences and lectures by international experts on religions and faith. For example, in 2023, the project supported a major international conference in Dublin organised by Dr. Francesco Quatrini (Amsterdam) and Prof. Katherine O'Donnell (UCD School of Philosophy) on Woman and Religion: 1500-1700:

 

 

 

Religion and Science

This project aims to bring together researchers and academics from Ireland and around the world with an interest in the relations between religion, religious faith, and science.

The aim of the project is not only to explore age-old questions concerning the compatibility of religious faith with scientific belief and practice, but to explore the complex history of the interaction between religion and science; sociological questions concerning the scientific background of religious practitioners and the faith background of many scientists; and philosophical and theological questions concerning the nature of the relationship between religious belief, practice and faith with scientific belief and practice. 

The first major output of this project is a series of lectures on Buddhism and Physics: see here for more information. 

 

 

 

Jewish Thought and Contemporary Philosophy

This project is led by Assoc. Prof. Joseph Cohen (UCD School of Philosophy), and engages with various questions concerning the relationship between Jewish philosophy and contemporary philosophical and political thought, in order to offer a dialogical and critical platform on themes and questions affecting our contemporaneity. In this sense, the aim of the project is both academic and societal. 

The project develops active and purposeful dialogue with other theological and religious traditions as well as engaging in contemporary questions emanating from political theory and governance, history and the humanities, science and technology, and art and aesthetics.

The project co-ordinates an annual international conference at University College Dublin, as well as various workshops and ateliers on specific themes.

International cooperation is actively sought with future partner institutions in Europe, North and South America, and the Middle and Far East, and funding for the project’s activities is sought both from within UCD and from international funding sources.

Project research themes include: Judaism in Ireland; Anti-judaism and Antisemitism in the History of Philosophy; Jewish Philosophy and Humanism; Jewish Philosophy and Ethics; Jewish Philosophy and Politics; Jewish Philosophy and the Problem of History; Jewish Philosophy and the Environmental Crisis; Jewish Philosophy and the Question of Technology; and Reason and Revelation – Autonomy and Heteronomy.

 

 

 

Previous Projects

Neoplatonism and Abrahamic Traditions

European Research Grant NeoplAT: A Comparative Analysis of the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West (9th-16th centuries) (ERC_CoG_771460) 2018-2023. Hosted jointly by UCD School of Philosophy and the Academy of Sciences Vienna.

This project, led by Dragos Calma (Associate Professor, UCD School of Philosophy), offers a fresh and thoroughly documented account of the impact of Pagan Neoplatonism on the Abrahamic traditions. It focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the Elements of Theology of Proclus (fifth century) which occupies a unique place in the history of thought.

The project radically challenges these conservative narratives both by analysing invaluable, previously ignored resources and by developing an innovative comparative approach that embraces a variety of research methods and disciplines. Specialists in Arabic, Greek and Latin history of ideas, philology, palaeography and lexicography develop an intense interdisciplinary research laboratory investigating the influence of Proclus on the mutual exchanges between the scriptural monotheisms from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.

Project Website: www.neoplat.eu

Project Members: Dragos Calma (Project Leader); Elizabeth Curry (Project Administrator); Jonathan Grieg (Postdoctoral Fellow, Academy of Sciences, Vienna); Evan King (Postdoctoral Fellow, UCD School of Philosophy); Maria Evelina Malgieri (Postdoctoral Fellow, UCD School of Philosophy); Iulia Székely (Research Scientist, UCD School of Philosophy); Matthew Vanderkwaak (PhD Student, UCD School of Philosophy).