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Opening Convocation to feature Santurri on war

By John Andert '10
August 31, 2007

Edmund Santurri
Santurri
Opening Convocation for St. Olaf College will take place Thursday, Sept. 6, beginning at 11:10 a.m. in Boe Memorial Chapel. Edmund Santurri, professor of religion and philosophy, and director of the Great Conversation program, will give the address. The event will include a formal procession by faculty. The St. Olaf Band, conducted by Timothy Mahr '78, and organist John Ferguson will provide music.

The event will be streamed live and archived online.

CounterinsurgencyManual
Recent international events have prompted Santurri to develop a longstanding teaching and scholarly interest in war and morality. His address, "Liberal Arts, General Petraeus and the Counterinsurgency Manual," will discuss the recently published U. S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. "It's a document that evidences the influence of academic reflection and invites further such reflection," he explains.

Santurri's talk will kick off "Liberal Arts in Times of War," the fall semester's sub-theme during the college's two-year academic focus on "Global Citizenship." The purpose of the theme is to encourage college-wide reflection on the contributions of liberal arts to understanding war, terrorism and the war against it, morality in war, plus the ideas of "realism," "just war," "holy war" and "non-violence" as competing normative traditions in the analysis of war. The semester will include presentations by: Minnesota National Guard Sgt. John Kriesel; David Little, professor of the practice of religion, ethnicity, and international conflict at Harvard Divinity School; and St. Olaf Distinguished Alumnus George Kelling '56, professor at the Rutgers-Newark School of Criminal Justice.

Santurri holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature and an M.A. degree in religious studies from the University of Virginia, as well as M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D. degrees in religious studies from Yale University. Santurri is the author of Perplexity in the Moral life: Philosophical and Theological Considerations (University of Virginia Press) and coeditor of The Love Commandments: Essays in Christian Ethics and Moral Philosophy (Georgetown University Press). A substantial portion of Santurri's teaching in religion and philosophy has focused on the subject matter of his original training, theological ethics and moral philosophy. Over the years he has taught courses in Christian ethics, philosophical-ethical theory, political ethics, medical ethics, comparative religious ethics, theological anthropology and theodicy.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.