Dr. Moreland will examine Anna Karenina through the eyes of Thomas Aquinas on the theological virtue of charity. Dolly, the secondary character and unacknowledged heroine of Tolstoy’s novel, is a paradigmatic example of what it means to see the world through the eyes of self-sacrificial love. Dolly is the literary exemplar of the perfection of charity. Her love exemplifies a Christian heroism, a love that is difficult if not impossible to emulate. It is a heroism that is too often domesticated in our age of therapeutic deism.
Dr. Anna Bonta Moreland is the Anne Quinn Welsh Endowed Chair and Director of the University Honors Program at Villanova University. A full professor in the Department of Humanities, her academic expertise and research include medieval theology, interfaith dialogue, and comparative theology, especially between Christianity and Islam. She is the author of Known by Nature: Thomas Aquinas on Natural Knowledge of God (Crossroad/Herder, 2010), Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), and and edited New Voices in Catholic Theology (Herder & Herder, 2012). Her latest book project, co-authored with Dr. Thomas W. Smith, The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like it Matters (CUA Press, 2024) reflects decades of listening closely to the challenges her undergraduates face. She has also written numerous articles in both academic journals and more popular venues. Dr. Moreland is recipient of a “Hope in Higher Education” Templeton Foundation Grant (2021-2024), and Wake Forest’s Educating Character Initiative Lilly Grant (AY 2024-2025). She is married with four children.