Events

Wild Goose Festival 2026

Partner Event Public Event
Image depicts Logo of Wild Goose Festival in which each letter of Wild Goose is a different color of the rainbow starting with the "W" in red and ending with the "E" in purple. There is a small drawing of a goose in all black at the bottom of the image.

Once again, we are thrilled to be sponsoring and attending the Wild Goose Festival this year in Harmony, North Carolina! Stop by The Seattle School’s tent at the event, where you can meet us and chat. We’ll also have information about all our programs and opportunities to connect with our faculty and alumni.

Visit our faculty and alumni presentations at Wild Goose:

Eucontaminating Virtue: Queerness, Virtue, and Liberation in the Shadow of Empire
with Billie Hoard & Paul Hoard, PhD

What does it mean to flourish in a world shaped by empire, assimilation, and the slow violence of respectability? This workshop invites participants into an encounter between virtue ethics, psychoanalysis, and queer liberationist theology—arguing that classical virtue frameworks, long co-opted by conformist and imperial projects, can be reclaimed and reimagined through the lens of liberation and Lacanian theory. Drawing on their collaborative work in disgust theology and queer liberationist frameworks, Billie and Paul Hoard will introduce the concept of eucontamination (the redemptive disruption of purity logics) as a foundation for rethinking what virtuous life might look like. The session will explore virtues like Queer Prudence, Magnanimity, and Courage alongside distinctly liberationist virtues forged in the experience of marginalized communities navigating empire’s edges. This is not a workshop about whether queer people can be virtuous. It assumes they already are, and asks how flourishing on the margins enhances our understanding and practice of virtue. Participants will leave with a richer theological vocabulary for resisting assimilation and embodying liberation in their communities

Board Games and Liturgy
with Paul Hoard, PhD Associate Professor

This play-filled experience explores the intersections of games, liturgy, and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Games provide a fascinating exploration into the nature of reality, how we encounter the other within ourselves and across the table, as well as powerful moments of rupture and repair within our lives. Participants will be invited to engage in play and reflect upon the psychological and theological implications of the captivating nature of play.

The U2 Guide to Surviving Our Current Moment
with Joel Kiekintveld, PhD Affiliate Faculty

In the moment we are living through, it can be hard to know how to respond to what is happening in the world. Many are asking, “What do I/we do?” U2 stepped into this questioning and our fraught times with the EP Days of Ash, offering a liturgy to consider how we might live in the world right now. Join us for this breakout session that will be part listening party, part book talk, and all practical application for living in the world guided by the six songs on Days of Ash.

*NOTE: This breakout is based on the new book, “A Verb and Not a Noun: Days of Ash, U2’s Lenten Liturgy” (SacraSage Press) by Joel Kiekintveld, which is being released at Wild Goose. Workshop attendees will be able to purchase the book at a 50% discount.

If you’d like to meet up with a Seattle School representative during the festival, please send an email to Lauren Peiser, lpeiser@theseattleschool.edu, Director of Partnerships.