ISME2026
Narratives, Education, and Flourishing Life
About | Schedule | Register | Travel
July 8–10, 2026
The 19th Annual Conference of the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry
Organized in collaboration with the Moray House School of Education and Sport
University of Edinburgh, U.K.
Wednesday, July 8
REGISTRATION
10:00–10:30
Paterson’s Land 1.18
OPENING ADDRESSES
10:30–11:00
Paterson’s Land LG 34
CONFERENCE OPENING
John Ravenscroft (University of Edinburgh)
COLLOQUIA 1
11:00–12:30
Education and Tradition
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Ron Beadle
“Education as a Moral Practice: Janusz Korczak in Light of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Conception”
Pola Deka (University of Silesia)
“The Liberal Halting of the Communal Turn in Scotland: Religion, Schools & the clash of Traditions”
Paul Gilfillan (Queen Margaret University)
“MacIntyre and the Virtues and Limitations of a Classical Education”
Peter Wicks (Elm Institute / Yale University)
Storytelling and Character Formation
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Geoff Moore
“‘Can You Change the Tides, Mate?’: Gentrification and Resistance of Cornish Fishing Communities in Bait”
Nathalia Bell (Loyola Marymount University)
“Storytelling and Virtue Ethics: A MacIntyrean Reading of J.R.R. Tolkien and Beatrix Potter”
António Cardoso Pinto (Independent Scholar)
“Storytellers Tell Stories”
Michael Potts (University of Dallas) & Heather Morris (University of Dallas)
Art, Practice, and Judgment
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Dominique Mailloux
“Reinterpreting the Artistic-Aesthetic Divide through MacIntyre”
Ieva Grazyte (Kaunas University of Technology)
“The Duty to Art: Kant, MacIntyre, and the Normativity of Aesthetic Judgement”
Grant Heller (Southern University)
“Trauma or Virtue? Rachmaninoff’s Revisionary Process and the Role of Criticism in Healthy Practices”
Johnathan Raine (Independent Scholar) & Reiss Kruger (Independent Scholar)
LUNCH
12:30–1:15
Godfrey Thomson Hall
KEYNOTE LECTURE 1
13:15–14:30
Paterson’s Land LG 34
“Tales, Tellers and Their Retellings: Three Reflections on the Life and Work of Robert Louis Stevenson”
Shari Sabeti (University of Edinburgh)
COLLOQUIA 2
14:30–16:00
Traditions, Classrooms, and Politics
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Joel Pearson
“An Evolving Story: Continuities in MacIntyrean Moral Philosophy Across Marx, Aquinas, and Catholic Social Thought”
James Mulvale (University of Manitoba)
“Parable, Freire, Feminist Pedagogies: Confronting Neoliberalism’s Shaping of the Soul in the University”
Jeffery Nicholas (Providence College)
“The Possibility Of Politics In the Modern State”
Zorana Novakovic (London Metropolitan University)
Embodiment, Attention, and Flourishing
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Peter McMylor
“Embodied Practical Wisdom: Corporal Techniques and the Virtue of Courage”
Karol Barć (University of Silesia)
“The Embodied Experience of Flourishing Through Calisthenics”
Marta Jagiełło (University of Silesia)
“When the World Looks Back: Noticing, Walking, and the Ethics of Attention”
Susana Oliveira (Lusófona University)
Narrative Identity and Justification
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Darren Shickle
“The Deep Story and the Unfolding of One’s Life”
Richard Kyte (Vitterbo University)
“How Do We Go About Answering the Question ‘Of What Story or Stories Do I Find Myself a Part?’, Particularly When Ties to Our Traditional Narratives are Ruptured?”
Ruby Straker (University of Edinburgh)
“MacIntyre on Narrative Justification: A Friendly Critique”
Tamás Paár (Pázmány Péter Catholic University / ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities)
TEA & COFFEE BREAK
16:00–16:15
Paterson’s Land 1.26
COLLOQUIA 3
16:15–17:45
Schooling, Agency, and Democracy
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Michael Potts
“Narratives, Subjecticity and Agency: MacIntyre in Dialogue With Contemporary Critiques of the Modern Schooling System”
Riccardo Mona (Pontifical Lateran University)
“Democracy all the Way Down - Teaching as a MacIntyrean Practice Revisited”
Jeffrey Pocock (Independent Scholar)
“De-schooling MacIntyre”
Sergei Talanker (Western Galilee College)
MacIntyre, Metaphysics, and Flourishing
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Peter Wicks
“The Resolute Reading of Alasdair MacIntyre”
Ivan Baranov (European University at St. Petersburg)
“MacIntyre, Francis Slade and the Metaphysics of Narrative in Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity”
Michael O'Neill (Providence College)
“An Evolutionary Theory of Flourishing and Prescriptive Ethics”
Francesco Rigoli (City St George's, University of London)
Human Development and Narrative
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Susana Oliveira
“Re-orienting the Self: Asian Perspectives on Human Flourishing”
Thomas Pearson & Joel Pearson (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)
“What did Isak Dinesen get wrong?: MacIntyre and Arendt on stories and action”
Joel Pierce (University of Aberdeen)
“Correcting MacIntyre on Human Development”
Dominique Mailloux (University of Québec in Trois-Rivières)
WORKSHOP FOR EARLY-CAREER SCHOLARS
18:00-20:00
The Canons’ Gait
Thursday, July 9
COLLOQUIA 4
9:00–10:30
Narrativity and Human Life
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Zorana Novakovic
“Narrativity and Its Discontents”
Jeremy Cappello Lee (KU Leuven)
“Human Lives as Stories. MacIntyre, Ricoeur, and McCabe”
Ostiane Lazrak (University of Caen)
“Making Better Narratives”
Joe Simpson (London Metropolitan University)
Digital Culture and Moral Formation
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Christopher Lutz
“The Virtues of Acknowledged Dependence as a Framework for Digital Accessibility”
Jeremy Rivera (University of South Florida)
“Artistic Practice and the Conditions of Narrative Reflection in Algorithmically Mediated Environments: The Mexican Case of ‘Tecnológico de Monterrey’”
Martha Sañudo (Technological Institute of Monterrey)
Learning, Stories, and AI
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Richard Kyte
“Alasdair MacIntyre, Fairy Tales and Flourishing”
Philip Tonner (University of Glasgow)
“On Being Able to Narrate and Learn”
Piotr Machura (University of Silesia)
“The (very) Idea of a University and AI Governance: A MacIntyrean Perspective”
Peter Heltai (University of Navarra)
TEA & COFFEE BREAK
10:30–10:45
Paterson’s Land 1.27
COLLOQUIA 5
10:45–12:15
MacIntyre and Politics
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Kelvin Knight
“St. Benedict and Trotsky: On MacIntyre's Anti-Political Politics”
Michael Baxter (University of Notre Dame)
“Friends, Strangers, Enemies: Ethics at a Time of Populism”
Ron Beadle (Northumbria University)
“A MacIntyrean Case for Non-identitarian Political Narratives”
Jan Eufinger (University of Hagen)
Storytelling, Reason, and Community
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Sante Maletta
“Hidden Lives: Journalistic Storytelling Techniques for Educating Practical Reason”
Sandra Borden (Western Michigan University)
“On Making a Just and Truthful Contribution to the Life of One’s Community”
Christopher Lutz (Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology)
“Fragmented Narratives”
Magdalena Wolska-Augustyn et al (University of Silesia)
Fragile Narratives and Meaning
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Piotr Machura
“The Uncivilised Divorce”
Sarah MacMillen (Duquesne University)
“When Narrative Unity fails....”
Garrett Potts (University of South Florida)
“Narratives From Vulnerability. On the Moral Significance of Quests for Meaning Beyond Happiness”
Paolo Monti (University of Milano-Bicocca)
LUNCH
12:15–13:00
Godfrey Thomson Hall
KEYNOTE LECTURE 2
13:00–14:15
Paterson’s Land LG 34
“After Apple: Higher Education, Digital Culture, and Flourishing”
Rafe McGregor (Edge Hill University)
COLLOQUIA 6
14:15–15:45
Tragedy, Critique, and Myth
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Chair: Jeffrey Pocock
“The Tragedy of Virtue: Four Weberian Tragedies of the Modern Age”
Andrew Lynn (Villanova University)
“Criticism and Critique as Viable Contemporary Strategies: Alasdair MacIntyre and Raymond Williams as Resources for Cultural Criticism.”
Peter McMylor (University of Manchester)
“Christianity, Marxism, and Narrative: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Search for a Rational Myth”
Joseph Scolaro (St. Joseph's Seminary)
Narrative and Pedagogy
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Paolo Monti
“MacIntyrean Pedagogy: An Empirical Defense”
Robert Farley (Hillsborough College)
“Creating Stories - To Find Ourselves Part Of”
Angela Ghadery (Independent Scholar)
“Inculcating Narratives: The ‘Background’ to Applying MacIntyre in Fieldwork”
Reiss Kruger (Independent Scholar)
Practices, Participation, and Practical Wisdom
Paterson’s Land 1.19
Chair: Ostiane Lazrak
“Anarchist Way to MacIntyrean Flourishing: Practices, Federalism and Workplace Democracy”
Matti Eskelinen (University of Turku)
“Making It Deliberate: Cultivating Practical Judgement Through Role-Play in Design Practice”
Thomas Coulombe-Morency (University of Montreal), Philippe Gauthier (University de Montréal), Sébastien Proulx (École de Technologie Supérieure)
“Narrative Moral Enquiry, Participation, and Practical Wisdom in Youth Protection”
Koraly Lupien (University of Québec in Trois-Rivières)
TEA & COFFEE BREAK
15:45–16:00
Paterson’s Land 1.27
PLENARY PANEL HONORING JAMES MACALLISTER
16:00–17:30
Godfrey Thomson Hall
Chair: Jonathan Hearn (University of Edinburgh)
“Understanding Human Action:
Rationality, Language and Human Flourishing in Education: Donald Davidson, Alasdair MacIntyre and Why this Mattered to James MacAllister and Myself – a Fireside Chat with Whisky”
John Ravenscroft (University of Edinburgh)
“MacAllister on MacIntyre: Exemplars in the Philosophy of Education”
Ian Normille (Anglia Ruskin University)
“Practices of Hope”
Mark Smith (University of Dundee)
CONFERENCE BANQUET
@ Cafe Andaluz
19:00–21:00
Friday, July 10
COLLOQUIA 7
9:00–10:30
Goods, Authenticity, and Practice
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Dominique Mailloux
“Internal, External, and Relational: On MacIntyre’s Theory of Goods.”
Pablo García-Ruiz (University of Zaragoza)
“Authenticity Grounded in an Orientation toward Goods: A Reconstruction Based on MacIntyre and Charles Taylor”
Ziqin Wei (Tsinghua University)
“A Gentle Defense of Kant”
Jeffrey Zents (South Texas College)
Public Health, Governance, and Character
Paterson’s Land LG34
Chair: Reiss Kruger
“Disputes Regarding the Medical Treatment of Young Children”
David Benbow (University of Sheffield)
“A Communitarian Analysis of Pandemic Governance: Rupture–Reform–Renew”
Darren Shickle (University of Leeds)
“The Importance of Character”
Geoff Moore (Durham University)
TEA & COFFEE BREAK
10:30–10:45
Paterson’s Land 1.19
COLLOQUIA 8
10:45–12:15
Narrative, Doctrine, and Conflict
Paterson’s Land 1.18
Chair: Jim Mulvale
MacIntyrean Narrative and the Development of Doctrine in Catholic Moral Theology”
John McKeever (Pontifical Irish College)
“The Narrative Unity of the Flourishing School”
Jordi Vilahur (University of Aberdeen)
Artificial Intelligence and Community
Paterson’s Land LG34
Chair: Garrett Potts
“Capitalism is Artificial Intelligence and Vice Versa”
Andrius Bielskis (Kaunas University of Technology)
“Narrating Modern Education: Conflicts Within and with the Subsumption of the Human by Political-Economic Technicisation”
Nick Hostettler (Queen Mary University of London)
“Community Context for AI Alignment (C2A2): Crisis and Revolution”
Thomas Loughran (University of Notre Dame)
CLOSING REMARKS
12:15–12:30
Paterson’s Land LG 34
Peter Wicks
(Elm Institute / Yale University)
Lunch
12:30-1:30
Paterson’s Land 1.18