In addition to offering doctoral seminars, the Distinguished
Visiting Professors will also work closely with doctoral
students in other ways. While in residence, each professor
will pursue his or her own current research. Doctoral
students will assist the professors in this research,
thereby learning different research methodologies as well as
specific topics. We anticipate that intellectual
relationships developed through this work will transcend the
professors' time in residence — professors may return as
members of students' dissertation committees and will
certainly broaden the horizon of the academic network as
students enter professional life.
WILLIAM PORTIER
William Portier, Ph.D. was our Distinguished Visiting
Professor in Fall 1999 and Fall 2000. Dr. Portier received
his B.A. from Loyola University of Chicago in 1969, his M.A.
from Washington Theological Union in 1972, and his Ph.D. in
Theology from the University of St. Michael's College in
Toronto. Dr. Portier is currently the Henry J. Knott
Professor of Theology Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg,
Maryland, where he teaches courses in the core program and
the theology major while also chairing the department. A
preeminent scholar of the history of U.S. Catholicism, Dr.
Portier specializes in Systematic and Historical Theology,
especially Ninteenth-century American Catholic History and
U.S.-Vatican Relations. Among his thirty books and
articles, Dr. Portier is the co-editor of two recent
volumes: Intellectual I
dentities, Vol. 2 American Catholic Identities: A
Nine-Volume Set of Historical Documents,
with Scott Appleby and Patricia Byrne (1999); American
Catholic Traditions: Resources for Renewal with Sandra
Yocum Mize (1997); and Tradition and Incarnation:
Foundations in Christian Theology (1994), which is a
widely used introductory theology text.
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MICHAEL W. CUNEO
Michael W. Cuneo, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham
University, brought to our department a background in
religious studies and a specialization in ethnograpy. Dr.
Cuneo helped inaugurate our program in the Fall 1999
semester. He received his B.A. from the University of
Toronto in 1980, his M.A. from the University of St.
Michael's College in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Religious
Studies from the University of Toronto in 1988. Dr. Cuneo
specializes in Roman Catholic Studies and the Sociology and
Anthropology of Religion. During the 1998-1999 academic
year he will also be serving as an Affiliate Fellow and
Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University's
Center for the Study of American Religion. Dr. Cuneo's most
significant work to date, The Smoke of Satan (Oxford
1997), is an ethnographic study of American Catholic
fundamentalism. Dr. Cuneo is currently conducting research
for another book-length ethnographic study on exorcism in
American culture, to be entitled Battling the Demonic,
to be published by Doubleday in 2000. His work also
examines American apocalypticism and the new religious
syncretisms that are emerging in the U.S. While at U.D.
Cuneo began a major "case study" on the crossing of the
paths of Pope John Paul II, the governor of Missouri, and
Darryl Mease, a multiple murderer condemned to death who was
pardoned by the governor after appeal from the pope. Cuneo's
book on this topic is forthcoming.
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JAMES D. DAVIDSON
James D. Davidson, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology at Purdue
University, brings to our department an enduring concern
with carefully portraying the Roman Catholic community in
this country through quantitative sociological research. He
has made major contributions to the sociaology of
Catholicism, most recently working with the sociology of
"generations" in the Church. His seminar in the Winter of
2001 will focus on utilizing sociological methods as
contributing to constructive theology. His Ph.D. is from the
University of Notre Dame. He has contributed extensively to
the sociology of religion, understanding social
stratification, and the sociology of sport.
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ADA MARÍA ISASI DÍAZ
Ada María Isasi Díaz left Cuba as a political refugee in
1960. After joining the Ursuline sisters and working as a
missionary in Peru and teaching in Spain, she was very
active in Christian feminist circles after the first Women's
Ordination Conference. She received the M.Div. and the Ph.D.
from Union Theological Seminary in New York and is Associate
Professor of Theology and Ethics at Drew Divinity School.
She is the author of four books and numerous articles
developing mujerista theology in dialogue with other
women-centered theologies and liberation theologies that
have emerged all around the world. In recent years, she has
been able to return to Cuba, to participate in workshops and
teach in a seminary there. She writes, "I continue to work
on issues of a liberative theo-ethical method. Convinced
that grass root people are admirably capable of explaining
their religious understandings and practices, I remain
convinced of the ethical and theological importance of their
voices. I continue to believe that our work as
activist-theologians has to offer not only "new" answers to
"old" questions but that we also have to ask new questions
that arise from the everyday of our people. The answers to
these "new" questions necessarily cannot be found in what
tradition has handed down but rather in the fresh presence
of the divine among us.
"My work in Cuba the last few years has led me to
research and to elaborate an understanding of reconciliation
that focuses not in the past but in the future, not in
dealing with what has been -though undoubtedly it is
necessary to do so in order to heal - but in discovering
together with those from whom we have been apart how to
build a common future. I am at present looking for ways to
continue this research and development with the help of
other Cuban and Cuban-American theologians living in the USA
and Cuban theologians living in the island."
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PATRICK CAREY
Patrick Carey (Ph.D., Fordham University [1978]),
specializes in the study of American Protestant and Catholic
religious life and thought. He is the author of over twenty
articles in professional journals (e.g., Church History, The
Catholic Historical Review, The Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae) and
six books, among which are: The Roman Catholics (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1993); American Catholic Religious
Thought (New York: Paulist Press, 1987); People, Priests and
Prelates: Ecclesiastical Democracy and the Tensions of
Trusteeism (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1987), An Immigrant Bishop: John England’s Adaptation
of Irish Catholicism to American Republicanism (New York:
United States Catholic Historical Society, 1982). He is
currently doing research for a contemporary history of
American Catholic theological thought. His seminar focuses
on the development of American Catholic theology.
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MEL PIEHL
Mel Piehl, Ph.D., Professor of History at Valparaiso
University brings to the department an enduring concern with
Christian Social Thought in the U.S. Having done substantial
research and publication on the Catholic Worker Movement,
Piehl brings an ecumenical perspective to the program. His
seminar in Winter, 2002, focuses on the evolution of
Christian Social Thought in the U.S.
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JAMIE T. PHELPS, O.P.
Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., a member of the Adrian Dominicans
Sisters, is currently an associate professor of systematic
and constructive theology at Loyola University Chicago and
adjunct professor of systematic theology at the Institute
for Black Catholic Studies (IBCS). She served as the
Associate Director for the graduate degree program of the
institute from 1994 to 2000. Professor Phelps holds a B.A.
in sociology from Siena Heights University, Adrian,
Michigan; a Masters of Social Work Degree (MSW) from the
University of Illinois; a M.A. in Scripture and Systematics
from St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota; and a
Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from The Catholic University of
America, Washington, D.C. She taught theology at the
Catholic Theological Union from 1986-1998 where she was
promoted to a tenured professor of theology and was the
Founding Director of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry
Program (1988-1996). She joined the faculty of Loyola
University Chicago in 1998 where to date she teaches
undergraduate and graduate courses in ecclesiology,
Christology, God and womanist theology.
She has edited one book, Black and Catholic: the Gift of
Black Folk--Black Contributions to Catholic Theology and
published approximately fifty articles in books and journals
on the topics of Ecclesiology (Church and Church Mission),
Inculturation, Spirituality, Christology, Black and Womanist
Liberation Theologies. Currently she is co-editing a
documentary history of Black Catholics in the United States
and is working on a major manuscript on communion
ecclesiology focusing on its implications for the church's
mission of social transformation.
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M. SHAWN COPELAND
We are also very excited about the faculty who will be
visiting in future years. M. Shawn Copeland, Associate
Professor of Theology at Marquette University and adjunct
Associate Professor at the Institute for Black Catholic
Studies at Xavier University in Lousiana, will join our
program for a semester in the future. Although she had
planned to join us for the Winter 2001 semester, new duties
at Marquete University prohibited her leaving for such an
extended period of time. Dr. Copeland received her B.A.
from Madonna College in 1969 and her Ph.D. in Systematic
Theology from the Joint Graduate Program in Theological
Studies at Boston College in 1991. Dr. Copeland's primary
teaching areas include Systematic Theology, Theological and
Philosophical Anthropology, Fundamental Practical Political
Theology, and Theological Method. Her secondary teaching
areas include African American Religious Experience and
Intellectual History and Culture. Dr. Copeland's recent
publications include "Violence and the Imagination:
Preaching to the Wounds of my People," 33-46, in Telling
the Truth: Preaching Against Sexual and Domestic Violence,
edited by John S. McClure and Nancy J. Ramsey, (Pilgrim
Press, 1998); and "Method in Emergent Black Catholic
Theology," in Taking Down Our Harps: Black Catholic in
the United States, edited by Diane L. Hayes and Cyprian
Davis, (Orbis Books, 1998).
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