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Department of Catholic Studies Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology
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About the Department of Catholic Studies The Department of Catholic Studies offers a rigorous, interdisciplinary exploration of the depth and breadth of the Catholic tradition. This study of Catholicism contributes to an informed understanding and appreciation of the Catholic Church and its unique contribution, past With more than and present, to the human 23,000 students, enterprise. Catholicism is a complex DePaul is the largest reality, rooted in the person Catholic university in and ministry of Jesus Christ; the United States. its tradition includes rituals, doctrines, artistic and architectural achievements, and much more. Hence, a thorough understanding requires the use of all DePaul University resources and years of study. The department’s mission is threefold: to provide an interdisciplinary curriculum that serves the university, college, and major; to disseminate DePaul’s Catholic mission to students through its classes and its co-curricular and extracurricular events; and to be the primary reference point for external constituencies (ecclesial, media, and community) on Church-related matters through scholarship and expertise.
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The department has its own tenured and tenure-track faculty and also draws on affiliated faculty from throughout the university to teach Catholic Studies courses: artists, economists, historians, literary critics, musicians, political scientists, and sociologists as well as philosophers and theologians. The BA curriculum is structured to give students with differing learning objectives and career goals maximum flexibility in designing their degree. In addition to courses at DePaul, the department also has two study-abroad programs in Italy and offers upper-level students the opportunity to take selected courses at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Many different paths are open to Catholic Studies majors: for example, graduate programs in the professions (education, journalism, law, the social sciences, or social work); advanced study in theology or religious studies; lay or ordained vocations in ministry. Whatever their post-graduate plans, students leave DePaul having participated in the human search for wisdom with a Vincentian emphasis on building a just society.
December 2015 (Enugu, Nigeria)—Speakers & participants at CWCIT’s International Colloquium on the Future of Catholicism in Africa
About the Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology The Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology (CWCIT) seeks to be at the forefront of the discussion about the relationship between globalization and the Catholic Church’s future as a truly worldwide Church. Housed in the Department of Catholic Studies, CWCIT focuses especially but not exclusively on the Church in the global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). We seek to create channels of collaboration and friendship among scholars from the North and South; to that end, each year we host visiting scholars from the global South. In addition to being mutually beneficial and enriching, this intercultural intercambio, like the work of CWCIT itself, promotes genuine bonds of solidarity between peoples whose particular cultural histories may be in conflict.
Mission Statement CWCIT was founded by DePaul University in 2008 in order to produce research that will serve the Church and the academy. To fulfill the mission, the Center has paid special attention to the World Church that has emerged since the Second Vatican Council and its growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. While our focus has been on the present global communion of faith, we also attend to historical, theological, and cultural questions that will contribute to a fuller understanding of Catholicism and the dialogue of cultures today.
What We Do • Host visiting scholars each year from the global South • Publish a book series, Studies in World Catholicism • Host an annual international conference, World Catholicism Week • Present other events (lectures, roundtables, etc.) throughout the year • Collaborate with institutions in the global South, such as the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) & St. Vincent School of Theology (Manila, Philippines) The CWCIT staff comprises five full-time members and one part-time student assistant. CWCIT’s director and its two research professors are also faculty members who teach for the Department of Catholic Studies. CWCIT’s other two fulltime staff hold professional positions as budget/operations manager and communications/editorial manager. The student assistant manages graphic design and other administrative tasks.
In 1900,
only 25 percent of Catholics lived in the global South: Latin America, Asia, and Africa. By the year 2000, that number had changed to nearly 70 percent, shifting Catholicism’s center of gravity. Studying the visible movement of ecclesial tectonic plates becomes a mandate for new scholarship and a creative impetus for new forms of social engagement. center for world catholicism
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Michael Budde, PhD
Professor, Catholic Studies and Political Science Senior Research Professor, CWCIT In 1993, I joined DePaul’s faculty in the Department of Political Science. In 2010, I accepted an appointment in the new Department of Catholic Studies, drawing its scholars from various disciplines, interests, and areas of expertise committed to exploring the diversity, paradoxes, and significance of Catholic Christianity. I helped organize CWCIT (see below) and have served as chair of both the Political Science and Catholic Studies Departments. I also served as director of DePaul’s Center for Church-State Studies during its time as a joint venture between the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and the College of Law. Outside of DePaul, I was one of the founders and the first coordinator of The Ekklesia Project, created in 1999 as an ecumenical network of scholars, pastors, and lay church leaders. My training includes a PhD in political science, specializing in political economy, political theory, and religion, from Northwestern University; an MA in politics from the Catholic University of America; and a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Research
Most of my scholarly work has focused on the intersections of political economy, ecclesiology (a branch of theology focused on the meaning of “church”), and Christianity as a worldwide religious movement and community. I have published on the church and capitalism; Catholicism and popular culture; Christianity and political allegiances; questions of war; political and cultural socialization; and the church as a transnational actor. Much of my contemporary research flows from the work of DePaul’s Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, a research center focusing on Catholicism in the so-called global South and as a worldwide religious community. I serve the Center as a senior research professor, and with my colleagues we host visiting scholars from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere in exploring important questions in theology, politics, history, and culture.
Teaching
My teaching interests range widely, drawing from political theory, political economy, and contemporary and historical Christian experience. Among my favorite courses is a core course in the Catholic Studies program entitled “Theories of the Church: Concepts and Controversies,” which focuses on the many (and often contested) meanings of “the church,” past and present; this course cross-lists with the Department of Political Science, and the varied interests of students from multiple programs regularly makes for stimulating and worthwhile discussions. I also teach courses on Catholicism and race/multiculturalism; on Christianity and nationalism; and courses that focus on contemporary Christianity and culture. I welcome independent study courses for students with specialized interests, or for those wanting to explore new areas of interest to them that don’t easily fit within existing course offerings. I appreciate the individual attention that our department offers to students, no matter their previous level of familiarity with Catholicism or their disposition toward it (committed, skeptical, searching).
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Real Presence and False Gods: The Eucharist as Discernment and Formation” in Modern Theology (April 2014) • “Happy Carnage: Sacrifice and Popular Entertainment” in Concilium 4 (2013) • The Borders of Baptism: Identities, Allegiances, and the Church (Cascade Books, 2011)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
William Cavanaugh, PhD Professor, Catholic Studies Director, CWCIT
I am a professor of Catholic studies and director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, a research center housed in the Department of Catholic Studies and focusing on the Catholic Church in the global South—Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame, where I planned to study chemical engineering but got hooked on theology. I received a master’s degree from Cambridge University in England and then spent two years working for the Church in a poor area of Santiago, Chile, under the military dictatorship. Upon returning to the United States, I got a PhD from Duke University, and then taught at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota for 15 years before coming to DePaul. I am married and have three sons.
Research
My major areas of research have to do with the Church’s encounter with social, political, and economic realities. I am especially interested in the social implications of traditional Catholic beliefs and practices, such as the Eucharist. I have authored six books and edited three more; my books and articles have been published in 10 languages. I have dealt with themes of the Church’s social and political presence in situations of violence and economic injustice. I am currently working on a book on secularization and idolatry, exploring the ways in which a supposedly disenchanted Western society remains enchanted by nationalism, consumerism, and cults of celebrity.
Teaching
Much of my teaching has been at the level of introducing students to the Catholic tradition, either through our “Introduction to Catholicism” course, or one of our history courses. I try to teach in an interdisciplinary way, showing the riches and challenges of the Catholic tradition through art, theology, scripture, music, poetry, history, novels, and so on. Some of the more specialized courses I have taught include courses on Christianity and consumer culture, and a course on Latin American theology. One of my favorite courses to teach is a first-year Discover Chicago course entitled “Global Catholicism in Story and Stone.” During Immersion Week, my staff and I take students to ethnic Catholic churches in Chicago: Polish, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, African American, etc. We tell the story of immigrant Catholicism in Chicago through history and theology, but especially through art and architecture.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World (Eerdmans, 2016) • Migrations of the Holy: Theologies of State and Church (Eerdmans, 2011) • The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Emanuele Colombo, PhD
Associate Professor and Chair, Catholic Studies I was born and raised in Italy, where I graduated in Classics at the University of Milan and where I received a PhD in the history of Christianity (University of Milan and Padua) with a dissertation on the reception of Augustine in eighteenth-century Italy. During and after my PhD program, I had the opportunity to develop my research in Europe (École Pratiques des Hautes Études, Paris) and the United States (University of Notre Dame and Boston College). In 2009, intrigued by the opportunity of a teaching position in Hawaii, I started to consider moving permanently to the United States. I ended up not in Hawaii, but at DePaul University in Chicago, where I am currently an associate professor in the Department of Catholic Studies, as well as its chair, and an affiliated scholar in the Department of History.
Research
My research is focused on religious history in the early modern period: theology and politics, Jesuit missions, and Christian-Muslim encounters. In the last few years, I have approached the history of early modern Catholicism through the prism of the Society of Jesus. Thanks to the extraordinary richness of Jesuit archives, the eclectic nature of early modern Jesuits, and their strong involvement with political, social, and cultural life, the history of the Society of Jesus offers a fascinating perspective from which to study the early modern period. Recently, I have been fascinated by the later phases of Jesuit history, in particular the years between the suppression and restoration of the order (1773-1814). The last few years have seen an explosion of Jesuit studies. With an international group of colleagues, I am on the board of the Jesuit Studies series (published by Brill) and the executive editor of the Journal of Jesuit Studies (Brill). I am always in touch with the European academic environment and am a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan. I have authored three books, edited two books, and published several articles and book chapters. I am currently working on the biography of a seventeenth-century Muslim prince from Fez, Morocco, who converted to Catholicism, joined the Society of Jesus, and spent the rest of his life preaching to Muslims in different European countries.
Teaching
Every year at DePaul, I teach multiple sessions of “Introduction to Catholicism” and “Catholic Experience II”; for many students those classes are their first exposure to Catholicism, and I really enjoy the discussions with them. I have also created and taught classes on Catholic-Muslim relationships, the Second Vatican Council, and a First-Year Program entitled “Food in World History,” very popular among students. Finally, I regularly teach two Study Abroad Programs: “Rome and Roman Catholicism” and “Western Art, History, and Religion in Florence, Rome, and Assisi.”
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “The Expulsion and Suppression in Portugal and Spain: A Reassessment” with Niccolò Guasti in The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context: Causes, Events, and Consequences (Cambridge University Press, 2015) • “Jesuit Missions” with Thomas Cohen in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern History (Oxford University Press, 2015) • “Western Theologies and Islam” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2016)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Stan Chu Ilo, PhD
Assistant Professor, Catholic Studies Research Professor, CWCIT Studying in Africa, North America, and Europe has given me a deep appreciation of the intercultural dimensions of learning in a changing world and a grateful respect for the beauty and differences in cultures and religious traditions. I was ordained a Catholic priest in my home country of Nigeria, and in addition to my native language, Igbo, I speak French, English, and Italian. My educational background includes an MA in theology; an MA in educational leadership; an ecclesiastical licentiate in sacred theology (with a concentration in the Christological images in Luke-Acts and African theologies); and a PhD in theology from the University of St Michael’s College at the University of Toronto (with a concentration in African Christian history’s crosscultural currents). I’m also completing (ABD) a second PhD at the University of South Africa in the sociology of education, specializing in equity and multicultural education in faith-based schooling. In addition to teaching at DePaul, I am also a visiting professor at Tangaza University College’s Institute of Social Ministry and Mission in Nairobi, and the founder of the Canadian Samaritans for Africa, a nonprofit that works directly with African women to help them alleviate poverty. I also am editor of the African Christian Studies Series for Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers; a commentator on Africa, religion, and politics for Canada Television (CTV) and Al-Jazeera; a columnist for CNN African Voices, Catholic Register and Premium Times; and a blogger for Huffington Post’s World Affairs, Religion, and Black Voices sections.
Research
My areas of interest are cross-cultural studies, African intellectual and political history, African Christianity and the world Church, equity and diversity in faith-based education and ministry, religion and social transformation, and religion and violence. Currently, I’m coordinating CWCIT’s new African Catholicism Project, aimed at creating a network of established and emerging African Christian scholars to promote mentorship and diverse research in African Christianity and to make this scholarship more visible beyond Africa. I also have several book drafts in various stages of production: “Suffering and Smiling: The Trials and Triumphs of God’s People in Africa”; “God in Africa: Religion and the Fate of Africans in World History”; and “The Faces of African Christianity: Telling Our Own Stories.”
Teaching
I’m a successful teacher only if I can bring out the best in my students, supporting them as they draw their own personal graphs for success. For me, teaching is a service of love that holds us together, as Parker Palmer says, in “the grace of greater things.” I wish to help students embrace the liberating light of knowledge and the beauty of truth that holds us all in care if we can look beyond our limited horizons. My classroom is a “discovery channel” where encounters with truth transform both me and my students, as we accompany each other in the learning process with love and respect. In this way, everyone sees the bigger picture and answers the call to participate in the search for knowledge and the good of order. The courses I teach are “Introduction to Catholicism,” “Introduction to African Catholicism, “Catholicism & Slavery,” “Sophomore Seminar in Multiculturalism,” and “Catholicism in World History: Modern & Post-Modern Times.” I use the historical, experiential pedagogy of case studies, problem-solving, and best practices in innovative teaching and learning to help my students gain creative skills to navigate uncharted waters and become architects of new ideas.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Dialogue in African Christianity: The Continuing Theological Significance of Vatican II” in Science et Esprit: Revue de Philosophie et Theologie (forthcoming May 2016) • “Roman Catholic Ecclesiology in Africa” in The Oxford Handbook of Ecclesiology (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) • “Cross-Currents in African Christianity: Lessons for Intercultural Hermeneutics of Friendship and Participation” in Pathways for Interreligious Dialogue in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) center for world catholicism
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Matthew Maguire, PhD
Associate Professor, Catholic Studies and History I’m a European intellectual historian by training. I received my BA from Brown University, and my PhD from Harvard University. At DePaul, I have a dual-appointment in the History Department and in Catholic Studies.
Research
I have devoted my research and writing to modern European intellectual history. My recently completed book deals with early twentieth-century European intellectual culture, above all as a multi-dimensional exchange of arguments and aspirations drawn from Christianity, Judaism, and modern Continental philosophy. My first book was entitled The Conversion of Imagination. It explored how an important tradition in modern philosophy, cultural reflection, and literature identifies imagination as a preeminent faculty to account for and work through theological, philosophical, psychological, political, and moral questions. My ongoing projects explore the cultural and intellectual history of modern Europe, with special attention to the relationships between and among religion, philosophy, literature, and politics.
Teaching
One of the things that I enjoy most about teaching at DePaul is that I am able to teach the history of Europe, modern intellectual history, as well as the history of Christianity and of Catholicism concurrently, and help students to think and write through and with them. In the history department, I teach courses in European history. In Catholic Studies, I teach surveys in the history of Christianity and Catholicism, as well as seminars on different topics connected to the philosophy of religion.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Charles Péguy and the Mysticisms of the Dreyfus Affair” in Understanding Religious Pluralism (Wipf & Stock, 2014) • “Pascal and Rousseau” in The Challenge of Rousseau (Cambridge University Press, 2012) • The Conversion of Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2006)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Mary Donoghue McCain, PhD
Professional Lecturer, Catholic Studies, Religious Studies, History Director, Irish Studies Program In 2004, I began teaching “Introduction to Catholicism” in what was then the Catholic Studies Program. Over the next three years, I was also given the opportunity to teach courses connected to Ireland and Northern Ireland in the History and Religious Studies Departments. I had majored in journalism and minored in history at Northwestern University, but two courses with an amazing history professor led me to realize that, rather than newspaper work, what I really wanted to do was to write about, think about, and talk in a university context about Irish Catholicism and Irish history more broadly. I earned a PhD in history at the University of Chicago while also working on the staff of St. Vincent de Paul Parish, on the southern edge of DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus, coordinating its adult education programs. My dissertation was an assessment of the work of a nineteenth-century Irish Dominican priest who was quite famous in his day but whose achievements hadn’t yet been fully examined by scholars.
Research
I continue to explore the development and impact of the Devotional Revolution in Ireland, a profound shift in religious practice during the nineteenth century that affected both faith and culture for several generations and continues to have a visible impact in many ways today. Because of my teaching, I have also developed an interest in commemoration and memory in Ireland, and in how discussions of the past in both Ireland and Northern Ireland affect young people’s identities and interactions with one another.
Teaching
As an Irish historian, I feel fortunate to be at a university in which I can teach in my own field and bring that training to bear in interdisciplinary areas like Catholic Studies as well. I taught Introduction to Catholicism for several years, and I now teach a course on Catholic European history for the department. My courses on Irish history and on the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1968-1998) also have significant Catholic Studies emphases. In the First-Year Program, I teach “Irish and Irish Catholics in Chicago.” I am also director of the Irish Studies Program, which draws on courses taught by faculty from several departments. I am grateful for DePaul’s commitment to and support of interdisciplinary projects and programs, which make my role here possible.
RECENT PRESENTATIONS • “Six Rebellions in Ireland, 1594-1867,” Irish Books, Arts, and Music Festival—Chicago, 2015 • “Ireland During the Reign of Elizabeth I,” Celtic Women International Meeting—Chicago, 2014 • “The Oratorical Style of Thomas N. Burke, O.P.,” American Conference for Irish Studies Annual Meeting—St. Paul, MN, 2003
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Scott Moringiello, PhD
Assistant Professor, Catholic Studies I joined the Department of Catholic Studies at DePaul in the fall of 2014. Before DePaul, I taught as a postdoctoral fellow in Villanova University’s Augustine and Culture Seminar. I received my PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2009. I received an MPhil in divinity from Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge (UK) in 2003, and I studied philosophy and classics as an undergraduate at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Research
My research interests follow along two distinct lines. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Irenaeus of Lyon, a secondcentury bishop and one of the first great theologians of the Christian tradition. I am interested in how Ireaneus employs methods from the Greco-Roman intellectual context in which he lived for the service of “orthodox” interpretation of the Scriptures. My future work in this field will continue this trajectory and pay particular attention to how Christians of the first four centuries understood love (agape) as constitutive of their identity and their interpretation of Scripture. That is, I’m interested in how literary theories and approaches influenced the reading of Christian Scriptures and thus Christian theology. My other research interest is in “religious” (especially Christian) themes in contemporary Anglophone literature. In this field, I am interested in exploring those authors whose characters and plots evince little evidence for explicit religious faith, but who can be understood more fruitfully with explicitly religious ideas in mind. In this way, I am interested in how Christian theology might inform our understanding of literary texts.
Teaching
The Catholic Studies Department at DePaul is the perfect place for me to explore my teaching interests, which range from theology to history to literature. In theology, I teach a course called “Introduction to Catholicism,” which introduces students to key Catholic beliefs, practices, texts, and authors. In history, I teach the first class in our history of Christianity sequence, which covers the life of Jesus to around the year 1200. And in literature, I teach courses such as “Literature and the Sacred,” “Catholicism and Literature,” and “Contemporary Spiritual Memoirs.” As I continue my time at DePaul, I look forward to expanding my teaching repertoire.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Irenaeus, Aristides, and Plato: Identity and Interpretation in the Second Sophistic” in Irenée entre la Bible et Hellenisme (Collection des Études Augustiniennes, forthcoming) • “Teaching the Rule of Faith in Love: Irenaeus on 1 Cor 8:1” in Irenaeus and Paul (Baylor University Press, forthcoming) • “Allegory and Typology in Irenaeus of Lyon” in Studia Patristica (forthcoming)
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Sheryl Overmyer, PhD
Associate Professor, Catholic Studies It was probably my love of nineteenth-century novels that landed me in the spot I am today—a moral theologian with interests across the disciplines. As an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame, I was asked to articulate the relation of religious and scientific judgments, to adjudicate tradition’s notion of the common good against modern economic and political arrangements, to relate ancient wisdom to its postmodern counterpart. I pursued similar questions into graduate studies at Duke University. My doctoral dissertation was moral and eclectic, drawing upon a medieval theologian and late medieval English poet in equal parts. In 2010, I joined the Department of Catholic Studies at DePaul. The department works hard to depict the beauty of human existence “not as a number of isolated precepts imposed by ecclesiastical authority,” in the words of Christopher Dawson, “but as a cosmos of spiritual relations embracing heaven and earth and uniting the order of social and moral life with the order of divine grace.”
Research
My earliest questions in ethics were fundamental: why be good? What are the virtues? How are Christian virtues distinctive? How are Christian virtues cultivated and sustained despite sin? In navigating my way through these inquiries, I came to rely on the help of Thomas Aquinas. My use of Aquinas also directed my attention toward a crucial aspect of the moral life that has been neglected in the past few centuries: the passions. The passions are roughly what we would recognize as emotions, though those terms too enjoy their own history. The passions are elemental forces that hold heavy sway over our ultimate happiness. My recent research projects on regret, envy, and joy fall under this purview. In the years to come, I hope to return to the source of my interest in ethics to consider novels as an education in the emotions.
Teaching
My students at DePaul have convinced me that, given the right hook and exposition, the wisdom of the early and medieval Church can come alive. I invite my students to encounter Christians from the past through primary sources. My students meet Aristotle and Epicurus from ancient Greece, Athanasius and Augustine from the apex and fall of the Roman Empire, and Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas from the high medieval period. These writers become partners for my students in an ongoing conversation about the good life. The topics of my courses draw upon the range of Catholic thought—ethics, theology, church history, moral psychology, philosophy—to consider a number of Catholic questions—about God, the common good, human happiness, faith and reason, what constitutes worthwhile work, and what constitutes an education.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Grace-Perfected Nature: The Interior Effect of Charity in Joy, Peace, and Mercy.” Thomas Aquinas on Charity (Yale University Press, 2016) • “Exalting the Meek Virtue of Humility in Thomas Aquinas” in The Heythrop Journal (2015)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Karen Scott, PhD
Associate Professor, Catholic Studies and History I am a historian specializing in medieval and Renaissance Europe. I became interested in history as a child: I am an American, but was brought up in France, near Paris, and went to French elementary and high schools. My BA degree is from Harvard, where my concentration was in history and literature. I received an MA and PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley. While completing research on my doctoral dissertation, I lived for many years in Siena, a medieval city near Florence in Tuscany, Italy. I moved to Chicago in 1989 to teach in the History Department at DePaul University. Later, I was involved in the creation of Catholic Studies as an interdisciplinary program, and I served as the first Chair of Catholic Studies when it became a department.
Research
My scholarly focus is the letters and other writings dictated by St. Catherine of Siena, the medieval Italian mystic and church reformer (1347-1380). I have also worked with the saint’s lives composed about her by others shortly after her death. I have published essays on St. Catherine’s views of herself as a lay “apostle” and peacemaker, on her ministry through letter writing, and on her mysticism. I am currently working on a book about St. Catherine’s Biblical culture. An uneducated lay woman associated with the Dominican order, Catherine dictated letters and mystical/ doctrinal treatises steeped in short Scripture quotations that she had encountered in medieval preaching and the liturgy.
Teaching
At DePaul University, I teach Catholic Studies core courses on the Catholic experience from the early church through the 1700s; Catholic Studies courses on “Beauty” and on the Medieval mystics; and History courses on late antique, medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation intellectual history, culture, and society. For the First-Year program, I teach Focal Point Seminars, “Mary of Nazareth” and “Joan of Arc,” and the Chicago Quarter course, “Explore the Medieval City in Chicago.” I have also taught extensively in DePaul’s Study Abroad Programs in Paris, Florence, and Rome. And I teach the graduate course, “History of World Christianity,” at Catholic Theological Union.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • Translation of Brother Emile of Taizé, Faithful to the Future: Listening to Yves Congar. Foreword by Charles Taylor (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013) • Witness of the Body: The Past, Present and Future of Christian Martyrdom, co-editor with Michael Budde (Eerdmans, 2011) • “Saint Catherine of Siena, Apostola” in Church History (March 1992)
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FAC U LT Y & S C H O L A R S
Jaime Waters, PhD
Assistant Professor, Catholic Studies I never considered becoming a Biblical Studies professor. Up until my undergraduate years at Boston College (BC), I thought of the Bible as that very important book collecting dust on my bookshelf. Fortunately, my professors opened my eyes to the wonder and complexity of the biblical world, and I knew I wanted to do the same. After completing a BA in theology and philosophy at BC, I went on to complete an MA in religion at Yale University and a PhD in Near Eastern studies at The Johns Hopkins University. My expertise is in Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament and ancient Semitic languages (e.g., Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, Ugaritic). In 2013, I joined the Catholic Studies Department, a home that allows me the opportunity to merge my interest in ancient and modern perspectives on the Bible.
Research
My research interests include sacred and liminal space, ancient Israelite religion, biblical law, and figurative language in the Hebrew Bible. I have published on the topics of sacred and liminal space in my book Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel: Their Ritual and Symbolic Significance (Fortress Press, 2015). This work explores ancient conceptions of agrarian space. When examining biblical passages about threshing floors, I found a noteworthy phenomenon. Although threshing floors are agricultural spaces, they rarely function in this capacity in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, various ritual activities occur on them including mourning rites, divination, sacrifice, and even the temple is built on a threshing floor. They are depicted as areas where people could access and commune with the divine. My current projects elaborate on this phenomenon by researching the ways in which agriculture and the natural environment facilitate human-divine interaction.
Teaching
My teaching emphasizes ancient and modern perspectives on the Bible. As when I was an undergrad, many students enter my courses with uncertainty. They are curious about the Bible but also unsure and cautious about interpreting a sacred text. I provide them with the tools needed to understand the historical, social, and cultural context of the Bible while also giving them a variety of modern-day perspectives and interpretive methods. Once equipped with this information, their confidence increases greatly, and they analyze the Bible in an informed manner. I am fortunate to witness and aid in their growth as biblical exegetes. The topics of my courses include a survey of biblical literature as well as more focused courses such as the environment and Bible, the Ten Commandments, Psalms, and prophecy.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS • “Can I Have a Word? Methods of Communication in Judges 6” in Antiguo Oriente (2016) • Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel: Their Ritual and Symbolic Significance (Fortress Press, 2015)
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MAJOR & MINOR Catholic Studies Major Requirements
Catholic Studies Minor Requirements
Core Requirements (Five Courses)
Both of the following two courses: • CTH 180 | Introduction to Catholicism • CTH 209 | Theories of the Church
52 Hours (13 Courses)
Both of the following two courses: • CTH 180 | Introduction to Catholicism • CTH 209 | Theories of the Church Two of the following courses: • CTH 220 | Catholic Experience I: Early Church—1200CE • CTH 221 | Catholic Experience II: 1200CE—French Revolution • CTH 222 | Catholic Experience III: French Revolution to Present One of the following two courses: • CTH 202 | Catholics and Scripture • CTH 203 | What Catholics Believe
24 Hours (6 Courses)
Two of the following courses: • CTH 220 | Catholic Experience I: Early Church—1200CE • CTH 221 | Catholic Experience II: 1200CE-French Revolution • CTH 222 | Catholic Experience III: French Revolution to Present One 200-level CTH elective One 300-level CTH elective
Area Studies (Three Courses) One course each from three of the five following areas: • Philosophy, Scripture, and Theology • Vincentian Studies • Catholicism and Aesthetics • Social Concerns and Moral Questions • World Catholicism Catholic Studies Electives (Four Courses) Four courses, three of which must be at the 300 level. Study Abroad Program in Rome is encouraged. Senior Capstone Required (One Course)
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Catholic Studies scholarships are available! Learn more at:
go.depaul.edu/catholic-studies-scholarships
CWCIT HIGHLIGHTS Each year, CWCIT offers a variety of conferences, roundtables, and other events, and is also honored honored to have hosted some very renowned and respected guest speakers. The following are a few examples:
Muslim-Catholic Dialogue Series Academic Year 2015-16—In this three-part series focusing on Africa, the Middle East, and the Philippines, Muslim and Catholic leaders of interfaith dialogue came together to discuss the religious and theological resources—as well as the practical, onthe-ground strategies—that they have personally found fruitful in regions of the world where this dialogue can mean the difference between life and death.
International Colloquium on the Future of Catholicism in Africa December 2015—Held in Enugu, Nigeria, this important gathering brought nearly two dozen African, North American, and European scholars into dialogue; it was the Center’s third event abroad and first ever in Africa. It was held in collaboration with the Spiritan International School of Theology and Peaceland College of Education, both in Nigeria.
Fragile World: Ecology and the Church April 2015—Held in anticipation of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’, this seventh annual World Catholicism Week featured speakers such as Michael A. Perry, OFM, minister general of the Franciscans, as well as other activists, theologians, and scientists from Colombia, Honduras, Europe, Nigeria, Kenya, the U.S., and the Philippines.
Rev. Laurenti Magesa
Jon Sobrino, SJ
Maria Voce
Pioneering scholar in African Catholicism Professor, Hekima University College & Tangaza University College (Nairobi, Kenya)
Liberation theologian & author Director, Centro Monseñor Romero, Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) (San Salvador, El Salvador)
President, Focolare Movement Consultor, Pontifical Councils for the Laity and Promoting the New Evangelization (Rome, Italy)
center for world catholicism
& intercultural theology 14
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Project Managers Emanuele Colombo Brenda Washington Contributing Editor Karen Kraft Designer Alyssa Storm
S TA Y C O N N E C T E D For more information about the Department of Catholic Studies and the Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology, visit: /CatholicStudiesatDePaul /WorldCatholicism
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STUDY ABROAD
Short-Term Study Abroad Program (Winter) Director: Dr. Sheryl Overmyer | Co-director: Dr. Emanuele Colombo Classes: CTH 205/HST 261, CTH 221 The program fulfills two of the following requirements: Religious Dimensions (RD), Understanding the Past (UP), Junior Year Experiential Learning (JYEL) The program is focused on Rome and Roman Catholicism. Its integral components of Catholic studies and history are rooted in a fecund material culture. Students visit sites that invoke several course components at once: e.g., the cultural and religious history that informs the architecture of the catacombs, and Vatican City’s historical, architectural, and cultural aspects.
Short-Term Study Abroad Program (Summer)
Director: Dr. Emanuele Colombo | Co-director: Dr. Susan Solway Classes: HAA 130, CTH 221 The program fulfills two of the following requirements: Art and Literature (AL), Understanding the Past (UP), Junior Year Experiential Learning (JYEL) This summer program in Italy explores Rome and Florence, centers of European art, capitals of the Renaissance and the Baroque, and (in Rome’s case) home of the Roman Catholic Church. Students also spend an entire day in Assisi, the medieval city which is home to St. Francis and the Franciscan charism movement that greatly impacted history, the history of Catholicism, and the history of art in the Middle Ages.
d e pa r t m e n t o f c at h o l i c s t u d i e s