Rev Michael A Conway,
MSc, STL, D Theol (Freiburg i. Br.)

Professor of Faith and Culture
Editor of 'Irish Theological Quarterly'
Director of Irish Centre for Faith and Culture

Tel: +353 (0)1 708 6293

E-mail:
michael.conway[at]spcm.ie
itq.editor@may.ie

Office Location: Room 9, Dunboyne House

Office Hours: Thursdays 8.30–10.45 a.m.

 

Biography:
Priest of the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, ordained 1989. Undergraduate studies at NUIM and St. Patrick’s College Maynooth (B.Sc Mathematical Sciences, BD.); graduate studies at NUIM (M.Sc. Mathematics), Gregorian University Rome (STL), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg i. Br. (D. Theol). Parish ministry (St. Brigid’s Parish, Ballybane, Galway (1990-1995). Director of Higher Diploma in Theological Studies (2000-2006), Lecturer in Systematic Theology, 2000, appointed Professor of Faith and Culture, 2006. Director of Irish Centre for Faith and Culture (2006-present). Editor of the Irish Theological Quarterly (2006-present).

Research Interests:

• The dialogue between Faith and Culture as evidenced in the so-called theological turn in contemporary Franco-German phenomenology – particularly in the wake /work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion.
• Maurice Blondel – the relevance of his thought to contemporary debates in Fundamental Theology with a particular emphasis on dialogue with recent developments in Phenomenology, Pragmatism, Philosophy of Science, Hermeneutics, and Philosophy of Religion.
• Theology and the natural sciences – the structure and philosophical foundations of the sciences, with a particular emphasis on the critical validation of their achievement and a dialogue with a religious worldview.
  

Select Publications:

• The Science of Life: Maurice Blondel’s Philosophy of Action and the Scientific Method (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000 [European University Studies; Series XX - Philosophy, Vol. 616])
• ‘Faith and reason in René Descartes (1596-1650): An Appreciation and Critique from Maurice Blondel,’ Gregorianum 83 (2002): 111-130.
• ‘Maurice Blondel and Early Anglo-American Pragmatism,’ Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 79 (2003): 72–96.
• ‘Maurice Blondel and the Structures of Science within a Positive Phenomenology,’ Irish Theological Quarterly 69 (2004): 377-401.
• ‘Maurice Blondel and Phenomenology,’ Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Issue 2(2004). Current research from the Faculty of Philosophy, NUIM, Mette Lebech (ed.), and Thomas A. F. Kelly (general ed.), Maynooth: Faculty of Philosophy, 2004, 14-31.
• ‘A Positive Phenomenology. The structure of Maurice Blondel’s early philosophy.’ Heythrop Journal 47(2006): 579-600.
• ‘From Neo-Thomism to St. Thomas: Maurice Blondel’s Early Encounter with Scholastic Thought,’ Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 83 (2007): 1-22.
• ‘Monade’ and ‘(Natur-)Wissenschaft,’ in Lexikon philosophischer Grundbegriffe der Theologie, Hg. Albert Granz, Wolfgang Baum, Karsten Kreutzer (Herder: Freiburg, 2003 / 2007).
• ‘Blondel, Maurice’ in the Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, ed. Daniel Patte, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• ‘A Thomistic Turn? Maurice Blondel's Reading of St Thomas,’ Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 84/1 (2008): 87-122.
• ‘A Church in Changing Times,’ The Furrow, 59 (2008): 280-284.
• ‘The Chaste Morning of the Infinite: Secularization between the Social Sciences and Theology,’ in The Taylor Effect: Responding to a Secular Age, ed. Ian Leask et al, London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
• ‘Maurice Blondel and Ressourcement’ in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, eds., Gabriel Flynn and Paul Murray, London: Oxford Univ., 2011, forthcoming.
• ‘Mathematics and the Mind of God’ in ‘Having Life in His Name’ eds., Brendan Leahy and Seamus O’Connell, forthcoming.

Current Research:

• Normativity, Freedom, and Ontology in the early Blondel

Courses:

• FC 201 Christian Faith and Culture

Links and Other Interests

• Irish Theological Quarterly