Seminars

Regular cost of Seminars is $250 and is due by the first seminar meeting. 

You can now pay ONLINE

In Spring 2021, the Newman Institute is offering four evening seminar courses for community members and undergraduate / graduate students! All classes (unless otherwise specified) will meet bi-weekly for 90 minutes. at the UNL Newman Center. Tuition is $250 per course.* A discounted rate of $125 is available to students, priests, and religious.

Tolkien, Friendship, and the Pursuit of the Good II

Course Description: The second semester on Tolkien's great trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, studies how friendship strengthens the individual as well as the community. Countering modern tendencies either to exalt or to isolate the individual, Tolkien's work demonstrates that the bond of friendship is essential for the common action needed to confront and defeat evil. We will read both The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Students need not have taken the first part of the course.

Instructor: Dr. Helen Freeh holds a Ph.D. in literature from Baylor University where she wrote her dissertation on Fate, Providence and Free Will: Clashing Perspectives of World Order in JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. A graduate of the University of Dallas, she has taught at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale Academy and McLennan County Community College.  

Spring 2021 Class Schedule: Mondays, 7–8:30pm, UNL Newman Center, Rm 222

Keys to the Kingdom: Seven Encyclicals for the Modern World 

Course Description: From Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum to Benedict XVI's Spe Salvi, papal encyclicals deal with subjects ranging from capital and labor to faith and reason; from the sexual revolution, so-called, to the culture of relativism; from growing consumerism to the loss of hope in life's meaning and purpose. Over the centuries, popes have embraced their responsibility, in the words of Pope St. Pius X, to "guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of faith delivered to the saints." This seminar will study seven of the most important encyclicals of recent times.

Instructor: Dr. John Freeh

Spring 2021 Class Schedule: : Mondays, 7–8:30pm, UNL Newman Center, Rm 222

On the Shoulders of Giants: Introduction to Patristics 

Course Description:  St. John Henry Newman said of the Church Fathers: “They are witnesses to the fact of these doctrines having been received, not here or there, but everywhere . . . down to our times, without interruption, ever since the apostles.” What are the teachings of these early Christian writers whom Newman so deeply appreciated? What were their beliefs, hopes, and concerns? Do these mirror our own? In this seminar we shall delve deeply into the writings of the first Christian centuries and become acquainted with such figures as Ignatius; Irenaeus; St. Athanasius; St. Augustine; St. Jerome . . . and come to an appreciation of their specific genius and their legacy for our own generation.

Instructor: Dr. John Pepino is a professor of Greek, Latin, History, and Patristics at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. His Master’s degree is in Classical Greek and Latin and his Doctorate is in the Fathers of the Church. He has published on the Fathers of Church and on contemporary Church History (particularly Vatican II and the liturgy in the twentieth century). His most recent publication is the English translation of Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2018).

Spring 2021 Class Schedule: Thursdays, 7–8:30pm, UNL Newman Center, Rm 222

The Integrated Life: The Economics of Higher Purpose 

Course Description: The focus of this seminar is the study of Catholic social teaching and its application to business. The course begins with an exploration of both the objective and subjective dimensions of human work articulated in a series of encyclicals by John Paul II. The course then moves on to the necessity of business for the promotion of the common good, human flourishing and Integral human development.  An overarching goal is to promote a more complete integration of one's faith and work.

Instructor: Dr. Geoffrey Friesen earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and his B.S. from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He came to CBA in 2005. His research interests include investments, behavioral finance, mutual fund performance, microfinance, business ethics and the application of Catholic Social Teaching to economics and finance. His teaching interests includes investments, security analysis, derivatives, managerial economics, the history of financial and economic thought and Ph.D. financial theory.

Spring 2021 Class Schedule: : Tuesdays, 11:45am–1:00pm, UNL Newman Center, Rosary Hall
                                                                       *Lunch included