Meet the Speaker: Dr. Vigen Guroian

NOTE: In preparation for the 2011 CIRCE Conference – What Is Man? A Contemplation of the Divine Image – we will be running a series of “Meet the Speaker” features. First up: Dr. Vigen Guroian.

A CiRCE Conference regular by now and a leading voice in contemporary Christian discourse about morality and ethics, Dr. Vigen Guroian is Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia, the same school from which he received his B.A. in 1970. In 1978 he received his PhD from Drew University. He is the author of nine books including the noted Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classical Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination and Rallying the Really Human Things: Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life.

He has contributed over 200 articles to journals, magazines, books, encyclopedias, and newspapers on a wide range of subjects including morality, ethics, liturgy, marriage and family, children’s literature, the sexualization of the modern American university, and bio-ethics. He has been featured on NPR’s Talk of the Nation as well as Chuck Colson’s Break Point.

Before joining the faculty at Virginia, he was for many years Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University. For the academic year 1995–1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.

Dr. Guroian is a permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, a Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University, Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, and a Richard M. Weaver Fellow.

Dr. Guroian’s books Inheriting Paradise and The Fragrance of God, both Christian meditations on gardening, have earned him invitations to speak and give readings at churches and gardening groups in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Among his lectures at CiRCE Conferences are “Dorm Brothel”, “Should we send our children to the contemporary college,” “The Business of Reading Great Literature,” and most recently his 2010 plenary lecture, “Mentor.”

A CLOSER LOOK:

— To read a portion of Dr. Guroian’s book Rallying the Really Human Things click here (shared with the permission of the publisher).

For more information on the CiRCE Conference click here.

[portions of this post were taken from Dr. Guroian’s bio at the Trinity Forum website]