The Nova Forum for Catholic Thought is an initiative of the Roman Catholic community at USC in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest and most diverse in the United States.
Our mission is to introduce students to the Catholic intellectual tradition, to share that tradition’s resources with the secular university, and to equip the next generation to sustain the tradition. Nova Forum is an enterprise of the USC Caruso Catholic Center. Nova Forum is currently the steward of a Templeton grant to bring programming in science and religion to USC in 2022-25.
Nova Forum provides students with programs for intellectual formation in Catholic thought, connecting the spiritual life with the life of the mind. Our seminars, workshops, lectures, and symposia offer learning experiences that draw on the Catholic past to speak to topics of contemporary concern in ways that supplement the university. Nova in Latin names the “new things” promised in the Scriptures and reflected in Catholic humanistic disciplines, including theology, philosophy, history, literature, politics, and the arts.
Nova Forum also shares Catholic intellectual traditions with the secular academy. As contemporary universities struggle to connect teaching and research, ethics and the marketplace, culture and the common good, Catholic thought offers new resources and new perspectives. While located at USC, Nova Forum engages other institutions across southern California, starting with a founding partnership with Pepperdine University. We welcome the participation of colleges and universities throughout the region as well as Catholic communities in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
The heart of Nova Forum is the annual Seminar organized by the Senior Fellows around a given theme who are joined by a class of undergraduate and graduate Junior Fellows. The Seminar embodies a classical model of communal inquiry and intellectual apprenticeship. Students learn how the Catholic intellectual tradition is practiced by entering into a dialogue grounded in friendship and shared faith. Senior Fellows bring a range of expertise in church history, theology, philosophy, poetry, art, political science, archaeology, and classical culture. In addition to the Seminar, Nova Forum maintains several ongoing colloquia and workshops, and invites Catholic scholars to USC for public lectures and regional symposia.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
— Isaiah 43:19
The In Lumine Network
This Science and Religion Series at USC is funded by a three year Templeton grant given to the In Lumine Network, a consortium of thirteen institutes for Catholic thought at secular universities. In fulfillment of this grant, the In Lumine Network endeavors to bring to these public universities the long Catholic tradition of thinking about the intersections of science and religion.
University of Chicago
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
University of Virginia
Hope College
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Williams College
The Aquinas Center of Theology