The Philosophy Department’s Rukavina Lecture is our signature annual lecture event. We invite a scholar from outside the university to give a talk on contemporary philosophical issues, aimed specifically at our PHIL 101: Reasoning students. The event is tailored to give them the opportunity to engage in dialogue with leading scholars on issues that impact their lives.
The Lecture was established in 1999 and is named in honor of Professor Thomas Rukavina, who was the first permanent lay (non-Jesuit) member of the Philosophy Department faculty at Gonzaga. He taught from 1958 to 1999 and was an expert in existentialism and the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.
2026 Lecture Series
Loving Strangers, Dr. Meghan Sullivan
23 October 2026, 5:00-7:00 pm, Hemmingson Auditorium
This talk will take a deep dive into the Parable of the Good Samaritan and its enduring philosophical significance. The parable raises some difficult questions about what grounds our love for others, our ability to extend love to people we know nothing about, and the more significance of going "above and beyond" what social and more norms require of us. I'll argue that this parable should join the pantheon of significant thought experiments in ethics, and I'll compare samaritanism with the ideas about love we commonly get from Aristotelian virtue ethics.
Speaker Biography
Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. She serves as Director of the University-wide Ethics Initiative and is the founding director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ethics.nd.edu). Sullivan is deeply interested in the ways philosophy contributes to the good life and the best methods for promoting philosophical thought. In 2022, Sullivan published The Good Life Method with Penguin Press (co-authored with her teaching collaborator Paul Blaschko) based on a wildly popular introductory philosophy course she developed at Notre Dame called “God and the Good Life.”
See more about this event on the Events at Gonzaga calendar.
Philosophy of Humor and Pop Culture, Dr. Elizabeth Cantalamessa
16 April 2026, 5:30-7:00 pm, Humanities Building, College Commons
Dr. Elizabeth Cantalamessa (St. Bonaventure University) will offer a thought-provoking lecture on the philosophy of humor, exploring how memes, irony, and satire reshape our shared norms of responsibility and accountability. Dr. Cantalamessa is known for her work in pragmatism and philosophy of language, where she examines humor not as entertainment but as a powerful cultural tool for negotiating meaning, authority, and social identity. See more about this event on the Events at Gonzaga calendar.
Previous Rukavina Lectures
Knowledge in a World of Chance, Dr. Richard K. Atkins
15 April 2025, 7:00 pm, Wolff Auditorium, Jepson