HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2013 Program - Alumni Association ...

Thomas F. Noble, Ph.D.
Professor, History; Fellow, Nanovic Institute for European Studies
Biography
Professor Noble earned his B.A. at Ohio University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Michigan State.
Over the past thirty-five years he has taught classical and medieval history at Texas Tech, the
University of Virginia, and at Notre Dame, where he is currently a professor of history and
formerly chair of the department of history and director of the Medieval Institute. Noble has
published and lectured widely on both Europe and the Mediterranean world. He has held
numerous fellowships and awards, has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, and is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. In 1999 he won the University
of Virginia’s Alumni Distinguished Professor Award, in 2008 Notre Dame’s Edmund P. Joyce,
C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and in 2008 the Charles Sheedy,
C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Teaching in the College of Arts and Letters. Noble is currently
the president of the American Catholic Historical Association. Tom and his wife, Linda, have
two children and four grandchildren.
Lectures
Faith Taking Shape: Early Christianity and the Arts
Between 300 and 1000 B.C., Christian theologians developed a vocabulary and conceptual framework for talking about God. In
those same centuries, as Christian art developed and spread, Christians also learned how to talk about art. There are surprises
and ironies in these two parallel developments.
Western Civilization: What a Good Idea
What is the “West”? Where is the West? Who is Western? Is there a Western heritage or tradition? What makes Homer, Virgil,
Dante, and Shakespeare “Western”? Why do we think of Christianity and Judaism as “Western,” but of Islam as “Eastern”? Is
the present world embroiled in a clash of civilizations, an inevitable and endless battle of East and West? Why are democracy,
capitalism, and experimental science “Western”? Everyone alive today has been influenced by the “West.” What, and how, should
we think about that? This lecture is a bracing romp through millennia with a view to understanding why the “West” matters.
74 The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2013 Program
Categories
Art/Architecture, Church,
Government