Visiting Scholar Speaks on Morality, Art, Confession in Film

Thomas Hibbs, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most influential philosophy and popular culture scholars, will present “Morality, Art, and Confession: Big Questions on the Big Screen,” as part of the Rockhurst Visiting Scholar Lecture Series. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, in Mabee Theater, Sedgwick Hall, on the Rockhurst Campus, 54th Street and Troost Avenue.

Hibbs will examine filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s last films before his death in 2007 (a script for Liv Ullmann’s Faithless and his own valedictory Saraband) – films that have much to say about the connections among art, morality, and confession. He will contextualize these films in relation to other popular contemporary films.

Hibbs received degrees from the University of Dallas and the University of Notre Dame, and taught at Boston College for 13 years, where he was chair of the philosophy department. At Baylor, where he is the Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture and dean of the Honors College, Hibbs has been involved in ecumenical discussions of the work of John Courtney Murray and Pope John Paul II.