The 2026 Symposium of St. Thomas Aquinas

Join the Religious Studies and Theology Department for

The 2026 McMahon Aquinas Lecture

How St. Thomas Aquinas’ Accounts of Fear and Courage Matter for Life After Trauma
Featuring Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD

4 p.m., Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Stapleton Lounge, Le Mans Hall

How St. Thomas Aquinas’ Accounts of Fear and Courage Matter for Life After Trauma
When traumatic events have shattered the safety and predictability of life in the world, what does it mean to go on? In his lecture, Kinghorn will examine how St. Thomas Aquinas offers powerful and helpful resources for living in the aftermath of trauma. When trauma makes emotions hard to control and understand, Aquinas reminds us that the emotions (or passions) are embodied signs of love. When trauma encourages us to hide and retreat, Aquinas offers an account of courage as the disposition to stand squarely in the face of life-threatening danger, to feel appropriate fear, and nonetheless to stand firm and to move forward in the pursuit of justice. Aquinas’ accounts of the passion of fear and the virtue of courage offer surprising resources for trauma survivors, naming trauma’s existential dimensions and suggesting practices helpful for recovery. 

About Warren Kinghorn
Warren Kinghorn is Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University School of Medicine; Esther Colliflower Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke Divinity School; co-director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School; and a staff psychiatrist at the Durham VA Medical Center. His work centers on the way that Christians understand mental health and mental illness and accompany those with mental health problems. He is co-author with Abraham Nussbaum of Prescribing Together: A Relational Guide to Psychopharmacology (American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2021), and the author of Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care (Eerdmans, 2024).

About the Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair 
Established in 1995 through a landmark $2 million donation by Saint Mary's College alumna Joyce McMahon Hank ’52. The Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair supports an annual symposium on Thomas's work, in which an eminent scholar of Thomas's work meets with students and faculty and offers a public lecture. The lecture supports the Saint Mary's Catholic mission by guiding students toward an appreciation of intellectual and spiritual harmony.