In The Great Conversation, we ask perhaps the most urgent question of all: “How should we live?” “We” ask, first-person plural: within a community of conversation, from the standpoint of our shared humanity, in dialogue with some of the greatest spirits to meditate on the question.
Western Civilization cannot be other than the pursuit of life lived civilly: urbanely, politically, in conversation that accommodates even deep disagreements within the bond of social friendship. This will always remain a work to be accomplished, for the history of civilization has been a history shot through with the violence of domination.
Volume I: Origins & Empire
Fall
2023!
Volume II: Disorder & Renewal
Coming Spring 2024!
Volume III: Reform & Enlightenment
Coming Fall
2024!
Volume IV: Ideology & Emancipation
Coming Spring 2025!
CONVENER OF THE GREAT CONVERSATION:
DR. J. DAVID FRANKS
J. David Franks received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston College, and was professor of sacred theology for almost a decade at St. John’s Seminary, where he co-founded the Theological Institute for the New Evangelization.
He speaks monthly at the Thursday Men’s Breakfast, an ecumenical Union Club event, and teaches at Boston Trinity Academy, where he is the director of the Trinity Institute for Leadership and Social Justice. He has led the Great Conversation for four years.
