Sr. Maria Frassati Jakupcak shows how Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure exposes the limits of abstract knowledge and reveals why some truths can only be known through love, experience, and particular relationship.

This lecture was given on April 11th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speaker:

Sr. Maria Frassati Jakupcak is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist and an Assistant Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Her dissertation was on player-dramatists present in William Shakespeare's plays, though she has published on Tolkien and Belloc as well. In addition to her academic work, her devotional writing regularly appears in Magnificat.

Keywords: Abstract Knowledge, Aquinas, Connaturality, Love, Measure For Measure, Particulars, Shakespeare, Theater, Truth, Universals

Fr. Jordan Zajac takes Shakespeare’s most morally charged characters and Aquinas’s deepest insights on love, hatred, and prudence to show why holiness sometimes means not just loving the good, but fiercely refusing what corrupts it.

This lecture was given on April 10th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Jordan is from New Bedford, MA and graduated from Providence College in 2004, majoring in English and minoring in Political Science. He went on for an MA at the University of Virginia and a PhD at The University of Massachusetts-Amherst. It was during doctoral studies that he discovered a calling to religious life and the priesthood. Upon completion of his PhD in 2013, he entered the Order of Preachers. After studying Philosophy and Theology at the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, DC), he served as associate chaplain at PC (2019-2020) and was ordained a priest here on campus in May, 2020. He has taught in the English Department since August, 2020.

Keywords: Aquinas, Charity, Cordelia, Hate, Holy Hatred, King Lear, Prince Hal, Prudence, Shakespeare, Virtue

Fr. Jordan Zajac uses Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Aquinas’s account of prudence to show how a person can know the good, reject it in imagination, and still fall into action through an inner collapse of judgment and will.

This lecture was given on April 10th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events

About the Speaker:

Fr. Jordan is from New Bedford, MA and graduated from Providence College in 2004, majoring in English and minoring in Political Science. He went on for an MA at the University of Virginia and a PhD at The University of Massachusetts-Amherst. It was during doctoral studies that he discovered a calling to religious life and the priesthood. Upon completion of his PhD in 2013, he entered the Order of Preachers. After studying Philosophy and Theology at the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, DC), he served as associate chaplain at PC (2019-2020) and was ordained a priest here on campus in May, 2020. He has taught in the English Department since August, 2020.

Keywords: Aquinas, Choice, Command, Imprudence, Macbeth, Passion, Prudence, Shakespeare, Tragedy, Will

Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., presents St. Leo the Great’s theology of mercy, showing how love for the poor and weak flows from Christ’s Incarnation, affirms the dignity of every human person, and calls Christians to become merciful as God is merciful.

This lecture was given on May 3rd, 2026, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is professor of patristics and ancient languages at the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies where he serves as the director of the doctoral program. He authored Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh (Catholic University of America, 2023). He co-authored A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Vocations, 2019). Editor-in-chief of the academic journal The Thomist, Hofer is editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Deification, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, and Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. He enjoys speaking with students about their theological and spiritual questions.

Keywords: Almsgiving, Beatitudes, Christian Mercy, Dignity Of The Human Person, Incarnation, Love Of The Poor, Matthew 25, Mercy, St. Leo The Great, Weakness

Fr. Thomas Aquinas Pickett, O.P., explains how Christ’s eternal priesthood fulfills the human desire for beatitude by reconciling humanity to God through his self-offering and drawing believers into the life of heaven.

This lecture was given on March 28th, 2026, at St. Albert's Priory.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Thomas Aquinas Pickett, O.P. is an Assistant Professor of Theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. His research interests include St. Thomas Aquinas, the priesthood and religious life, and virtue ethics. He delights in leading students through the insights of St. Thomas Aquinas so that they may develop their confidence in and love of sacred doctrine.

Keywords: Beatitude, Christ The High Priest, Grace, Jesus Christ, Melchizedek, Priesthood Of Christ, Sacrifice, Sanctifying Grace, St. Thomas Aquinas, Supernatural Happiness

Prof. Catherine Peters unpacks Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy of language and reveals how the words we use do more than describe reality: they shape what we understand, how we judge, and how we act.

This lecture was given on April 1st, 2026, at University of California, Los Angeles.

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About the Speaker:

Catherine Peters is an associate professor of medieval philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. Her work centers on issues of philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, and natural theology. She is passionate about translating medieval thought into modern terms and applying its insights to perennial questions such as “Who am I?” “What should I do?” and “Is there a God?” A frequent presenter in both the United States and Europe, her scholarship has been published in numerous volumes and journals, including The Thomist, New Blackfriars, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Journal of Islamic Philosophy, European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas, Lex Naturalis, and Jesuit Higher Education. When not in the classroom, she can often be found in local coffee shops, at the dog park, or in a HIIT class.

Keywords: Analogy, Communication, Concepts, Language, Intellect, Reality, Signification, Thomas Aquinas, Truth, Words

Dr. Wes Siscoe tackles a big question in science and philosophy, arguing that the very fact that nature follows stable, intelligible laws points beyond brute fact and toward God as the deeper explanation.

This lecture was given on April 14th, 2026, at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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About the Speaker:

Wes Siscoe is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University. He is also a Thomistic Institute alum, having founded the TI chapter at the University of Arizona. With a passion for making philosophy accessible to college students and the general public, Wes founded the Philosophy Teaching Library at the University of Notre Dame and participated in the Philosophy as a Way of Life Project. When he isn’t doing philosophy, he’s hanging out with his family and two miniature dachshunds.

Keywords: Aristotle, Classical Theism, Fine Tuning, God, Laws Of Nature, Naturalism, Scientific Explanation, Thomas Aquinas, Theology, Truth

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy brings Aquinas into the urgent modern conversation about vocation, showing why the path to a call is not endless hesitation but a grace-filled, courageous movement toward charity and the life God is asking of us.

This lecture was given on April 15th, 2026, at University of South Florida.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Aquinas, Charity, Discernment, Evangelical Counsels, Grace, Prudence, Religious Life, State Of Perfection, Vocation, Vocational Discernment

Prof. Steven Jensen asks whether computers can really think, and he argues that while machines can imitate reasoning and behavior associated with thought, they lack the awareness that makes genuine thinking possible.

This lecture was given on April 16th, 2026, at Southern Methodist University.

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About the Speaker:

Steven J Jensen holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, where he teaches in The Center for Thomistic Studies. His fields of research include bioethics, moral psychology, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, human nature, and natural law. He is the author of several books, including the following: Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics, The Human Person: A Beginner’s Thomistic Psychology, The Natural Law: A Beginner’s Thomistic Guide.

Keywords: Awareness, Artificial Intelligence, Chinese Room, Cognition, Computers, Consciousness, Neural Networks, Philosophy Of Mind, Reasoning, Thought

Prof. Paige Hochschild explores what truth is and shows, through Tolkien, how truth arises from the mind’s encounter with reality, how myth can reveal historical meaning, and how truthful storytelling can shape moral vision.

This lecture was given on April 16th, 2026, at Williams College.

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About the Speaker:

Dr. Paige Hochschild is a professor of historical and systematic theology at Mount St. Mary's University (MD), specializing in Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and the early Church.  She also teaches philosophy courses at the Seminary at Mount St. Mary's.  She has written a book on the place of memory in Augustine's theological anthropology, and publishes on the Church, education, tradition, and 20th Century theological debates within the Church (scripture, history, marriage).

Keywords: Allegory, Fantasy, History, J. R. R. Tolkien, Moral Imagination, Myth, Narrative, Reality, Storytelling, Truth

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., explains why holiness does not require exceptional intelligence but does call every person to grow in the distinctly human capacities to know truth, choose the good, and love God.

This lecture was given on June 27th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly and Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life, and is co-author of Credo: An RCIA Program and Marian Consecration with Aquinas.

His writing also appears in Aleteia, Magnificat, and Ascension’s Catholic Classics series. In addition to the TI podcast, he regularly contributes to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas, and Catholic Classics.

Keywords: Charity, Contemplation, Faith and Reason, Holiness, Image Of God, Intellect and Will, Lectio Divina, Rational Animal, St. Thomas Aquinas, Study