It is necessary to think together in order to understand the ways that faith inspires reason and reason articulates faith, that human freedom is open rather than closed, that self-assertion consists of reaching out to others in the solidarity and subsidiarity of civil society and that we need now to move in space that is global, and even virtual. The Center for the Study of Culture and Values and the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy host annual 10-week cross cultural faculty seminars in Washington, D.C., with philosophers, scholars and opinion leaders from around the world.

Seminars characteristics:

              Size: restricted to under 20 scholars to facilitate intensive interchange around a single table;

Duration: 10 weeks, to allow the issues to mature and the participants to establish a growing degree of mutual comprehension, from which new insight can emerge;

            Interdisciplinary: to draw upon the contemporary capabilities of the various humanities and sciences and to penetrate 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 their particular problems in our day to envisage new and creative responses;

            Focused: a single integrating theme, in order to encourage a convergence of insights;

            Intensive: to analyze in detail papers planned in common and written by each of the participants during the seminar; and

            Publication: the resulting volumes, consisting of chapters written by individual participants, discussed intensively in the seminar and then redrafted, to reflect the work of the seminar and to share with those working in the various cultural communities facing the problems of contemporary life.

Each seminar results in a substantive volume on a theme such as "The Place of the Person in Social Life." Upon returning to their home countries, seminar participants continue to pursue the theme in their university faculties, academies of science or through writings and participation in political and non-governmental organizations. Typically such seminars have been devoted to intensive study of civil society. This series has consisted of four seminars: "Civil Society and Social Reconstruction," "Civil Society: Who Belongs?" "Civil Society as Democratic Practice" and "Civil Society as a Narrative Practice."

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