Dominican House of Studies
Thomistic Institute
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Neuroscience and the Soul

An Intellectual Retreat for Providence and Brown/RISD

When:

December 5 - December 7, 2025 3:30 PM - 1:30 PM EST

Location:

Dominican House of Studies | Washington, DC

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Join other students of the Thomistic Institute for an Intellectual Retreat!

Students will have the opportunity to attend talks with top-notch theologians and scholars, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, attend Mass, spend time in personal prayer, and enjoy meals and times of fraternity with the Dominican friars and other students.

Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, meals and housing will be provided free for accepted applicants. Limited travel scholarships are available upon request.

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William B. Hurlbut is a physician and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University Medical Center. After receiving his undergraduate and medical training at Stanford, he completed postdoctoral studies in theology and medical ethics, studying with Robert Hamerton-Kelly, the Dean of the Chapel at Stanford, and subsequently with the Rev. Louis Bouyer of the Institut Catholique de Paris. His primary areas of interest involve the ethical issues associated with advancing biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology. He was instrumental in establishing the first course in biomedical ethics at Stanford Medical Center and subsequently taught bioethics to over six thousand Stanford undergraduate students in the Program in Human Biology. Dr. Hurlbut is the author of numerous publications on science and ethics including the co-edited volume Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (2002, Oxford University Press), and “Science, Religion and the Human Spirit” in the Oxford Handbook of Science and Religion. He has organized and co-chaired three multi-year interdisciplinary faculty projects at Stanford University, “Becoming Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Spiritual, Religious and Moral Awareness,” “Brain Mind and Emergence,” and the ongoing “The Boundaries of Humanity: Human, Animals, and Machines in the Age of Biotechnology.” In addition, he was Co-leader, together with U.C. Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna of “The challenge and opportunity of gene editing: a project for reflection, deliberation and education.”
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Fr. James Dominic Brent is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Chaplain to Commuter Students at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC. He has articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Natural Theology, in the Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas on “God’s Knowledge and Will”, and an article on “Thomas Aquinas” in the Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology.

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