This first seminar in the series given by Anna Rowlands will explore the renewed interest in the common good across the spectrum, and why it is both a very (frustratingly?) elastic idea and one that refuses to go away. We will look at its Christian lineage and suggest that it is an essential idea to help us address the most challenging issues we face today. Anna Rowlands is St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice at the University of Durham. She is a political theologian who works on Catholic and Anglican social theologies. She teaches and researches on religion and refugee studies in UK and Middle East. She is the author of the newly released Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times , co-editor of The T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology, which can be purchased here, and is currently working on a new book on the social philosophies of Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Gillian Rose.