Table of Contents

What Pico Thought—and What It Wrought

In grounding the dignity of man in his potential to be whatever he desires to be, this fifteenth-century Italian prince and philosopher gave rise to the modern secular worldview that privileges self-actualization above all else.

Esmé L. K. Partridge

Dignity Is for the Heart, Not the Ego

Contrary to its usage in today’s public discourse, dignity is not something all humans universally have, but something that everyone must do.

Caner K. Dagli

Alchemy, Mythology, and Artificial Intelligence

Where ancient priests used ritual to draw down a god to invest dead matter with powers for good or ill, modern science fantasists see the soul as a mere computer program and seek eternal life not in heaven or some cryonic vat but as computer software.

Lenn E. Goodman

The Untold Stories of Enslaved African Muslim Women in the Americas

Among the enslaved Africans in the Americas, Muslim men have garnered significant attention. But historical records can provide a glimpse into the lives of the forgotten ones: enslaved Muslim women.

Sylviane A. Diouf

Sing of Wrath

As a starting point for Euro-American literature, the Iliad compels us to consider why our literary tradition begins with wrath. Have we brought a curse upon
ourselves by starting this way?

Stephen A. Gregg

Malice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass into a Strange New World

A Renovatio public conversation about the modern self examines both the philosophical origins and the impact of the subversive sexual revolution we are witnessing today.

Carl R. Trueman and Hamza Yusuf

How the Law of Love Could Govern Our Hatreds

The love command implies a duty to believe in the possibility of goodness for others—even when we see no evidence of the good in a person’s character or actions.

Diana Fritz Cates

Transgenderism and the Violation of Our Angelic Nature

The reconstitution of the human being in accordance with the dictates of tacit or explicit renderings of materialism set in motion a radical rethink of traditional concepts about gender, sexuality, and family.

Hasan Spiker

What Walking Can Do for Our Souls

The significance of walking in the Islamic tradition, both as a prelude to and as a part of prayer, provides the ground on which to explore the riches of rootedness as a divinely endowed gift unto human beings.

Hina Khalid

A Macbeth Soliloquy

What can we glean from how Shakespeare wrote it and how Denzel Washington performed it?

Scott F. Crider

“Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything”

Dignity serves both as a lynchpin for moral condemnations of suicide and euthanasia as well as a justification for medical assistance for dying. How can we clarify what
dignity demands in relation to suicide?

Joshua Lee Harris