Domestic migration and international immigration have long been integral to growth and development world-wide. Cities and even countryside now become cosmopolitan and international. Current political unrest and the economic recession have changed the rules of the global, regional, and local practice so that in this process the immigrant or refugee has, in many cases, become the victim. 

The fall RVP seminar in Washington will attempt to examine the global phenomenon of global migration, and the needed correlative, ?hospitality.? Too often, the so-called ?alien? is objectified, as a commodity of production and deemed ?useful? or ?legal,? depending on her/his perceived-role in the production cycle. A hermeneutical approach, allowing for the unveiling of ?prejudices? and the dignity of the human person can open an alternative way for our mobile/global age. 

Readings will trace a path in Eastern and Western philosophy from Confucius and the Greeks, through Aquinas and Ibn Kaldun, to such recent thinkers as Gadamer and Levinas. Throughout, the seminar will seek to respond to life in our current mobile/global age with its need for community and hospitality. 

Seminar Characteristics

Size: restricted to under 20 scholars, in order to facilitate intensive interchange around a single table;
Interdisciplinary: in order to draw upon the contemporary capabilities of the various humanities and sciences and to penetrate deeply into the philosophical roots and religious meaning of cultures;
Intercultural: to benefit from the experiences and commitments of the various cultural communities from all parts of the world, to discover the particular problems of living together in our day, and especially to envisage new and creative responses;
Focused: a single integrating theme, in order to encourage a convergence of research and insights;
Duration: 5 weeks, in order to allow the is­sues to mature, the participants to establish a growing degree of mutual comprehension, and new insight to emerge;
Intensive: analyzing in detail a set of related readings as well as the papers planned in common and completed by each of the participants; and
Publication: the resulting volume(s), consisting of substantive studies drafted during the seminar by the individual seminar participants and intensively discussed by all will reflect the work of the seminar and share it with those thinking deeply on the problems of contemporary life in their various cultural communities.

Application for Participation

Applications for participation in this seminar should be sent by email by April 1, 2012, to cua-rvp@cua.edu and include:
(1) a vita describing one?s education, professional positions and activities,
(2) a list of the applicants? publications,
(3) a letter stating your interest and involvement in this theme and the relation of participation in this seminar to your past and future work in philosophy and related studies, and
(4) an abstract of a study(s) you might present as an integral part of the seminar.