This Festschrift was planned in connection with a conference held at the University of Notre Dame, July 27–29, 2014, in honor of Kent Emery, Jr., on the occasion of his 70th birthday (July 7, 2014), bearing the same title, i.e., “Contemplation and Philosophy: Scholastic and Mystical Modes of Medieval Philosophical Thought”. This volume is thus, to a large extent, a scientific outcome of said academic event. The conference was organized by two former post-doc fellows supervised by Prof. Emery in Notre Dame, namely, Roberto Hofmeister Pich (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre / RS, Brazil) and Alfredo Santiago Culleton (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo / RS, Brazil), and by the—then—Director of the Notre Dame Medieval Institute, Olivia Remie Constable. Eighteen scholars read papers at the conference, coming from places as different as Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and others. Each of these lecturers, as well as another group of distinguished scholars, had also been invited prior to the conference to prepare an essay subsequent to it, which would help composing a collective volume in honor of Prof. Emery, as a sign of friendship and, above all, recognition for his enormous and undisputable contributions to the research field of medieval philosophy and theology, not only as a teacher but also as author, advisor, editor of books and of the Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale of the SIEPM, and, last but not least, as a true leader in his area of expertise. As a result, the editors of the present volume can be really proud of having gathered, through this Festschrift in honor of Prof. Emery, the publication of essays (and editions!) which are, in many—if not in all—cases, truly new and original.
Roberto Hofmeister Pich and Alfredo Santiago Culleton first conceptualized the conference and the Festschrift in April 2013. Remie Constable strongly and enthusiastically supported the idea of the conference and offered us the invaluable support of the Medieval Institute to help realize the project. Unfortunately, Remie Constable could not take part in the academic convivium of July 2014, as she got very ill in the second half 2013 and passed away on April 16, 2014. We would thus like to express our most sincere thankfulness to her, in memoriam. It also seems appropriate to mention that Prof. Kent Emery, Jr. was the first recipient of the Olivia Remie Constable Prize, which was awarded by the Notre Dame Medieval Institute in summer 2015.
We would further like to thank Maureen B. McCann Boulton, who worked as Acting Director of the Medieval Institute in the months previous to the conference in July 2014, as well as John Van Engen, who was, at that time, Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute. Both embraced the project and supported it enormously. Also, we are most grateful to Roberta A. Baranowski, who was, in the months prior to the conference, Associate Director of the Notre Dame Medieval Institute. She has always worked with kindness and serenity; and without her energy, intelligence, and positive spirit, the conference would not have been possible, especially because the organizers had to coordinate things despite the—quite significant—distance between Brazil and the USA.
Roberto Hofmeister Pich and Andreas Speer took the responsibility of editing this volume. We would especially like to thank Alfredo Santiago Culleton, not only for having co-organized the 2014 conference and contributing an essay to the Festschrift, but also for making important suggestions and providing his full support regarding every little step in the course of the editorial work. Also, in a very special way, I would like to thank Prof. Speer, long-lasting friend and academic partner of Prof. Emery, for his support and for having joined me in the task of editing the volume. From the very beginning, he promoted the idea of publishing the Festschrift and helped secure a place for it in the prestigious series “Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters” by Brill. This editorial project would not have been possible without his experience and academic expertise, and without the cooperation of his team at the Thomas-Institut at the University of Cologne. Allowing myself a personal note, I must say that the project would not have been possible without Andreas Speer’s limitless patience with me.
Roberto Hofmeister Pich