RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
Read about where our faculty and graduate students have recently been published or featured as speakers, or the topics of their newest books.
FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras (Oxford University Press, 2023), a book by Kerry P. C. San Chirico, PhD, associate professor of Theology and Religious Studies, explores the surprising rise of worshippers who blur the lines between Christianity and Hinduism. San Chirico examines the beliefs and practices of Khrist Bhaktas, or devotees of Jesus, as well as members of the Catholic order who seek to share Jesus, Mary and other significant figures of the faith with those interested, demonstrating a degree of “porousness” between Hinduism and charismatic Catholicism.
In his most recent book, Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence, Christopher B. Barnett, DPhil, professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, explores the influence of Dylan’s work through the lens of Danish Philosopher and Theologian Søren Kierkegaard. By establishing a theoretical approach to Dylan’s multifaceted compositions, the book helps readers better understand his music and its significance today.
This 800-page volume of The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II – edited by Villanova Professor Massimo Faggioli, PhD, and Catherine E. Clifford (Oxford University Press, 2023) – offers a rich source of information and reflections on many aspects of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), one of the most significant religious events of the twentieth century. The chapters introduce readers to the historical context and outstanding features of the conciliar event, and its principal teachings on Scripture and Tradition, the church, liturgy, religious liberty, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, church-world relations, and mission.
View recent publications and talks by our faculty and graduate students in the lists below. To see more works, visit the faculty websites listed under full-time faculty. The research interests of our doctoral students and candidates can be viewed on PhD Student Profiles.
Gerald Beyer, PhD, professor
Just Universities | Catholic Social Teaching Confronts Corporatized Higher Education, Fordham University Press, 2021. Read more.
Timothy Brunk, PhD, associate professor
“Ecumenism and Roman Catholic Eucharist,” chapter in T & T Clark Handbook of Sacraments and Sacramentality (Bloomsbury, 2023).
The Sacraments and Consumer Culture, Liturgical Press, 2020.
Read more.
Jesse Couhoven, PhD, affiliated faculty
“Why Christians Should (Still) be Compatibilists,” in Theological Perspectives on Free Will, ed. Aku Visula and Ollie-Pekka Vainio. Taylor and Francis, 2023, 27-46.
Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, professor, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair
The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin and the Relational Whole. Orbis Books, 2023.
Religious and Cultural Implications of Technology-Mediated Relationships in a Post-Pandemic World. Robert Nicastro, Noreen Herzfeld (eds.), Lexington Books, 2023.
“Extending the Noosphere into Intergalactic Life Teilhard de Chardin and the Third Axial Age” (pp. 415- 434) in Astrophilosophy, Exotheology and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe. Contemporary Whitehead Studies.
"Why Technology is Our Future" (pp. 209–238) in Religious and Cultural Implications of Technology-Mediated Relationships in a Post-Pandemic World. Lexington Books, 2023.
The Primacy of Love, Fortress Press (US) and Dalton, Todd, Longman (London). January 2022. Read more.
John Edwards, PhD, affiliate faculty
James Alison and a Girardian Theology: Conversion, Theological Reflection, and Induction, T&T Clark Academic/Bloomsbury Press, May 2020.
Massimo Faggioli, PhD, professor
The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, co-editor with Catherine E. Clifford, Oxford University Press, Jan. 2023.
Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States, Bayard Inc., 2021. Read more.
Kathryn Getek Soltis, PhD, assistant professor
Co-authored a chapter on prison abolition in the new Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics (Routledge, 2023).
Nathaniel Grimes, doctoral candidate
Co-authored a chapter on prison abolition in the new Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics, Routledge, 2023.
Jennifer Constantine Jackson, ThD, associate teaching professor
“On Wizards, Hobbits, Saints and Friendship in Fratelli Tutti” in Gestures of Grace: Essays in Honour of Robert Sweetman. Ed. Joshua Harris. Wipf and Stock, December 2023. 138-166.
“Revisioning Friendship and Spirituality in an Age of Social Media” in Religious and Cultural Implications of Technology-Mediated Relationships in a Post Pandemic World. Ed. Ilia Delio, Noreen Herzfeld and Robert Nicastro. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, June 2023. 71-96.
Jaisy Joseph, PhD, assistant professor
“Marked by 2020: Disorientation and Reorientation in a Pandemic Age,” book chapter in Gratitude, Injury, and Repair in a Pandemic Age, Georgetown University Press, 2023.
Stefanie Knauss, ThD, professor
Religion in Representations of Europe: Shared and Contested Practices. Baden-Baden: Nomos, w/ Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (eds.), 2023.
Vincent Lloyd, PhD, professor
“The Virtues in Black Theology” chapter in Shakespeare and Virtue, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Co-authored a chapter on prison abolition in the new Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics, Routledge, 2023.
Black Dignity: the Struggle Against Domination, Yale University Press, 2022. Read more.
Joseph Loya, OSA, PhD, associate professor
Easter Together: An Ecumenical Exploration for a Common Date, Eastern Christian Publications, Annandale, VA. June 2023.
Robert Nicastro, doctoral candidate
Co-editor of Religious and Cultural Implications of Technology-Mediated Relationships in a Post-Pandemic World. Lexington Books, 2023.
Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, PhD, assistant professor
“Apocryphal Within the Canonical: Unorthodox Influence on the New Testament Textual Transmission,” in Daniel B. Wallace et. al., eds., Pen, Print & Pixels: Advances in Textual Criticism in the Digital Era (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2023), pp. 203–222.
Kerry P. C. San Chirico, PhD, associate professor
Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras (Oxford University Press), 2023. Read more.
“Bridging, Crossing and Transgressing: Interreligious Studies and Interfaith Engagement in the Catholic University,” chapter with Julia Sheetz, in Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies, Georgetown University Press, 2022.
Rachel J. Smith, PhD, associate professor
"Keeping Time: Performing Eternity in Henry Suso's The Life of the Servant." In Gestures of Grace: Essays in Honour of Robert Sweetman (Wipf & Stock, 2024), pp. 105-118.
Jonathan Yates, PhD, professor
Co-edited The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Christian North Africa. Volume 2: Augustine’s Confessions to the Arab Conquest (400 C.E. to 650 C.E.). DeGruyter, 2023.
“The Gospels and the Catholic Epistles” chapter in The Oxford Handbook on the Pelagian Controversy, Oxford University Press, 2023.
“Polemics in a Pastoral Guise: Scripture in Five North African Epistulae of 416 CE” chapter in The Pelagian Controversy and its Aftermath. Leuven University Press, 2022.
Gerald J. Beyer, PhD, professor
"La teología académica necesita poner orden en su propia casa," Concilium: Revista internacional de Teologia, 403 (Noviembre 2023): 113-127 (also published in Italian, German, French and English).
"NATO Expansion After 1989: An Argument from the Catholic Social Tradition," Theological Studies Vol. 85, No. 1 (2024): 162-89.
"La teología académica necesita poner orden en su propia casa," Concilium: Revista internacional de Teologia Vol. 403, No. 5 (Noviembre 2023): 113-127 (also published in Italian, German, French and English).
Timothy Brunk, PhD, associate professor
Regular contributor to Pray Tell: Worship, Wit & Wisdom blog. View a log of his articles.
“Ecumenism and Roman Catholic Eucharist,” chapter in T & T Clark Handbook of Sacraments and Sacramentality (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, professor, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair
“Falling Inward, Falling Upward: God, Self and the Liberation of Love”, Oneing: An Alternative Orthodoxy, Center for Action and Contemplation vol. 11, n. 2 (2023).
"Teilhard's Scientific Holism: A Reply to David Sloan Wilson," Religion, Brain and Behavior (Routledge, 2023).
"Transhumanism and Transcendence," in Cambridge Companion to Religion and AI, eds. Fraser Watts and Beth Singler (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
After Science: Fresh Perspectives from Philosophy and Theology book review. Cambridge University Press, 2022 in The Heythrop Journal (March 2023).
Joseph Evans, doctoral candidate
“The Virgin Mary as a Source of Strength, Comfort, and Hope for Asian Women: Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnam) and Our Lady of Health (Vailankanni, India).” Co-Author: Sr. Ngoc Nguyen, LHC. Maria: A Journal of Marian Studies. Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2023): 1-18.
Hamid Dabashi, The End of Two Illusions: Islam After the West, University of California Press, 2022. Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (2022), Villanova, PA.
Massimo Faggioli, PhD, professor
Regular contributor to La Croix International and Commonweal Magazine.
"Notes on Prophecy and the Ecclesiology of Synodality from the Second Vatican Council to Today", in Irish Theological Quarterly, 88(4) 2023, pp. 308-322.
"The Need for the Historiographical Approach to Understand and Address the Sex Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church", in Doing Theology and Theological Ethics in the Face of the Abuse Crisis, eds. Daniel Fleming, James Keenan, SJ, and Hans Zollner, SJ, Journal of Moral Theology No. 3, 2023 (CTWEC Book Series, No. 3), pp. 265-280.
"Synodality and the Appointment of Bishops: Issues and Proposals from Vatican II to Global Catholicism Today", in Reforming the Church - Global Perspectives, edited by Declan Marmion and Salvador Ryan, Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2023, pp. 52-66.
Kathryn Getek Soltis, PhD, assistant professor
“Pneumatology, Restorative Justice, and Prison Abolition,” with Nathaniel Grimes and Vincent Lloyd, in The Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics (Routledge), 2022.
“Ten Tips to De-Carcerate Your Theology, Ethics, or Religion Classroom,” with Sarah Jobe, Nathaniel Grimes, Vincent Lloyd, Jason S. Sexton, and Mary Beth Yount, Political Theology.
Nathaniel Grimes, doctoral candidate
“Pneumatology, Restorative Justice, and Prison Abolition,” with Kathryn Getek Soltis and Vincent Lloyd, in The Routledge Companion to Christian Ethics (Routledge).
Refunding the Police Cake, Macrina Magazine, January 2022.
Stefanie Knauss, ThD, professor
“Images of Pain, Images of Hope: African Films as Narrative Theologies of Gender and Sexuality,” Exchange 52 (2023), pp. 34-53.
“Festivals of European Film and Their Image of Europe: Religious Complications,” In: Knauss, S.; Pezzoli-Olgiati, D. (eds.), Religion in Representations of Europe: Shared and Contested Practices. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2023, pp. 351-388.
“Encounters among Strangers: Bodies, Marys, Art,” In: Pryor, R./Burns, S. (eds.), Feminist Theologies: Interstices and Fractures. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2023, pp. 171-177.
Vincent Lloyd, PhD, professor
“On Domination and Abuse: Thinking with Augustine” in Augustine and Ethics, ed. Sean Hannan and Kim Paffenroth, Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.
“Love, Judgment, and Antisemitism: The Case of Alice Walker” in The King Is in The Field: Essays in Modern Jewish Politics, ed. Julie Cooper and Sam Brody, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023.
“Race and the Philosophy of Religion” in Philosophy of Religion after “Religion”, ed. Michael Rodgers and Richard Amesbury, Mohr Siebeck, 2023.
“What Life Is Not: Aimé Césaire as Phenomenologist of Domination,” for “Africana Philosophy” special issue ed. Bado Ndoye, Delia Popa, and James Vernon, Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 2023.
“Christianity and Racial Justice,” in Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law, Oxford University Press, edited by Rafael Domingo Osle and John Witte, Jr., 2023.
“Charisma” in Democracies in America, edited by Greg Laski and Bert Emerson, Oxford University Press, 2023.
Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, PhD, assistant professor
"Was Salome at the Markan Tomb? Another Ending to Mark's Gospel." Comparative Oriental Studies Manuscript Bulletin 8:2 (2022): 401-20. 2023.
“Signs of Mary Magdalene in John 11” in Christian Century, November 2023.
Luke Roberts, doctoral student
Book review of Christianity as a Way of Life: A Systematic Theology by Kevin W. Hector (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023), Modern Theology, January 2024.
Ethan Schwartz, PhD, assistant professor
“The Theological Pretension of the Ethical: Reframing the Jewish Significance of Genesis 22,” Interpretation, 2023.
“First-Person Narration and the Poetics of Theophany in the Deuteronomic Horeb Account,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2023.
“Josiah’s Reform and the Question of Personal Implication in Systemic Wrongs,” Journal of Jewish Ethics, 2023.
Laura Simpson, doctoral candidate
"On Transdisciplinary Possibility: An Interstitial Exploration of American Religious History and Religious Ethics", Journal of Religious Ethics, July 2023.
Rachel Smith, PhD, associate professor
"Keeping Time: Performing Eternity in Henry Suso's The Life of the Servant." In Gestures of Grace: Essays in Honour of Robert Sweetman (Wipf & Stock, 2024), pp. 105-118.
Perdian Tumanan, doctoral student
"Rethinking Martyrdom Theology: A Reflection on Shusaku Endo’s Silence" in the book anthology A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, Global Mennonite Perspectives on Peacebuilding and Nonviolence.
Héctor Varela Rios, PhD, assistant professor
“In defense of Latinx: a theological microintervention” in Why Can’t We Wait: Racism and the Church, Catherine Punsalan-Manlimos, Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier, and Elisabeth T. Vasko, eds., College Theological Society Annual Volume 68, Orbis Books, May 2023.
Stephanie Wong, PhD, assistant professor
“Yu Bin and Vincent Lebbe’s Theology of Resistance: Catholic Participation in the Chinese War Effort Against Japan.” In Modern Chinese Theologies Volume 1: Heritage and Prospect, 109-130. Edited by Chloe Starr. Fortress Press, 2023.
“Roman Catholicism: Painting, Printing and Selling Morality in Modern China.” In Visions of Salvation: Chinese Christian Posters in an Age of Revolution, 185-200. Edited by Daryl Ireland. Baylor U. Press, 2023.
"Chinese Christian Theology." In St. Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2023.
Jonathan Yates, PhD, professor
“Vt non simus homines: Augustine’s Exhortations against Lying in his Sermones ad Populum,” Augustiniana 71/1 (2021): 7-26.
Gerald J. Beyer, PhD, professor
“Reinvigorating Social Justice Programming at Catholic Colleges and Universities,” keynote address, Seton Hall University, May 31, 2023.
Timothy M. Brunk, PhD , associate professor
“The Liturgy and the Land”, meeting of Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission, Collegeville, MN, July 2023.
“Talking to Parents about First Penance and First Communion”, meeting of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, Cincinnati, OH, October 2023.
“Consumerism, Liturgical Formation, and the Child” (to be part of a published volume), Contours of Wonder: Romano Guardini and Liturgical Formation Conference, Notre Dame University, November 2023.
Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, professor, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair
“Can Science Alone Advance the Noosphere? Understanding Teilhard’s Omega Principle”, N2 conference: The Future of Human Collective Consciousness, University of California Berkeley, November 2023.
“Can God be Updated? Lessons from Science”, God 2.0 Conference on Pantheism and Quantum Reality, Center for Christogenesis, December 2023
“The Divine Milieu of Therese of Lisieux”, Carmelite Federation, January 2024 (online).
“Deep AI: Mind, Matter, and Planetary Life”, Adrian Dominicans, February 2024 (online).
March 18, 2024: "Brave New Church: Artificial Intelligence, Faith and the Future of Christian Life”, Macon Lecture, DeSales University, March 2024.
“Why AI Needs Spirituality”, Aspen Chapel, Aspen, CO, April 2024.
Interview on NPR podcast, "Theologian Ilia Delio on why AI needs religion", August 2023.
Joseph Evans, doctoral candidate
“Interreligious Considerations for the Role of Women in the Asian Church,” Pope Francis and the Future of the Catholic Church Conference, St. Mark’s College, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 2023.
Massimo Faggioli, PhD, professor
"The “Synodal Process” in the USA and in the Global Church: A Geography of Hope" at the conference of the AUSCP, University of San Diego (San Diego, CA), June 2023.
"The Catholic conflict over Vatican II and its implications for relations with the Jews". Lecture at the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at St. Joseph’s University (Philadelphia), September 2023.
Opening lecture "Que reste-t-il de Vatican II? Sexisme, racisme, crise des abus et tradition catholique"of the «Francqui Chair 2023», Universitè Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, October 2023.
"The Synod. An early assessment of the 2023 assembly in Rome", lecture hosted by the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin, November 2023.
Sharon Gutkowski, doctoral candidate
Presented “Being and Becoming Dokimoi: An Analysis of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34” at the 85th International Meeting of The Catholic Biblical Association at Creighton University for being named the 2023 Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) Verbum Emerging Scholars Fellow.
Timothy Hanchin, PhD, associate professor
Presented Catholic Higher Education at Our Lord’s Tomb: Toward a Pedagogy of Holy Saturday in Our Age of Contempt at The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis: Gender, Race, Abuse and the Living Catholic Tradition, Villanova University, December 2023.
Vincent Lloyd, PhD, professor
“This Nation Under God?”, United Lutheran Seminary, 2023.
Keynote lecture, Koinonia Graduate Student Conference, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2023.
"Pursuing Justice in Toxic Times,” Drumwright Lecture, Baylor University, 2023
“Abolitionism: Religious Criticism or Secular Criticism”, Gates Lecture, Grinnell College, 2023.
Jaisy Joseph, PhD, asssistant professor
Keynote speaker, “Race, Racism, and the Tensions of Unity and Difference: How Resistance to Anti-Semitism among the Council Fathers can Inspire Catholic Anti-Racism in a Global Church” at The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis: Gender, Race, Abuse and the Living Catholic Tradition, Villanova University, December 2023.
Keynote speaker, “Between Ecclesiology and Ethnography: Studying the Continued Reception of Vatican II” at 60 years Vatican II: The End of the Western Church?, KU Leuven, November 2023.
Presented at and participated in a conference of theologians and bishops, "The Way Forward: Pope Francis, Vatican II, and Synodality," at Boston College, March 2023.
William Kuncken, doctoral student
Presented "Vatican II and the Birth of Ecological Ecumenism: Examining the Conciliar Foundations for the Church’s Response to Environmental Crisis" at The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis: Gender, Race, Abuse and the Living Catholic Tradition, Villanova University, December 2023.
Vincent Lloyd, PhD, professor
“This Nation Under God?”, United Lutheran Seminary, 2023.
Keynote lecture, Koinonia Graduate Student Conference, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2023.
"Pursuing Justice in Toxic Times,” Drumwright Lecture, Baylor University, 2023
“Abolitionism: Religious Criticism or Secular Criticism”, Gates Lecture, Grinnell College, 2023.
New Books Network podcast caught up with Dr. Vincent Lloyd to discuss his book "Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination" (Yale University Press, 2022), September 2023.
Interview with Yale Center for Faith and Culture podcast, Feb. 2023.
Kerry P. C. San Chirico, PhD, associate professor
Panel Organizer and Presider, “Christianity through Hindu Categories: Christianity as dharma, mārga, sampradāya, paṅth,” Society for Hindu-Christian Studies; Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX, November 2023.
“Embodiment in the Christian Life.” Orthodox-Pentecostal Academic Dialogue: Seventh Meeting. American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX, November 2023.
In this New Books Network podcast, Dr. San Chirico is interviewed on the subject of Indian religions and his book "Between Hindu and Christian: Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras" (Oxford University Press, 2023) which details the Khrist Bhaktas devotees of Jesus in the heart of Hindu civilization; September 2023.
Ethan Schwartz, assistant professor
Presented the Possibilities and Limits of “Dei Verbum” for Jewish-Catholic Dialogue: Academic Biblical Studies as a Shared Theological Question at The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis: Gender, Race, Abuse and the Living Catholic Tradition, Villanova University, December 2023.
Trevor Williams, doctoral candidate
Presented converting to Crisis: A Reflection on the Sex Abuse Scandal and Christian Initiation at The Legacy and Limits of Vatican II in an Age of Crisis: Gender, Race, Abuse and the Living Catholic Tradition, Villanova University, December 2023.
Stephanie Wong, PhD, assistant professor
Holy See [Dicastery of Interreligious Dialogue and the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations], International Conference on Women Building a Culture of Encounter Interreligiously: "Interreligious Encounter: Insights from the Dialogue of the Samaritan Woman and Jesus in John 4" (Jan. 2023)
Yale University, Yale Divinity School, Bartlett Lecture: "Understanding the Divine from an East Asian Perspective" featuring Stephanie Wong, Peng Yin and Haruka Umetsu Cho, (March 2023).
Villanova University, Fides Quarens Symposium on "Hospitality and the Impossible" “The Ethics of Hospitality: Responsiveness in Personal and Institutional Encounters” (April 2023).
Professor Gerald Beyer Villanova University 2023 VERITAS Faculty Research Program Award for “The Ethics of NATO Expansion.” CLAS Summer 2023 Virtual Global Course Exchange Grant for Virtual Exchange with the Ukrainian Catholic University.
Professor Timothy Brunk received, with Dr. Christiane Lang Hearlson, a four-year, $1.25 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. Their effort, “The Children, Liturgy and Ecology Project,” will explore the connection between Christian liturgical formation, love for the natural world and children’s lived experience. More.
Professor Jesse Couenhoven Veritas Award for outstanding faculty scholarship, Villanova University, Fall 2023. Awarded partly in recognition of the successful conclusion of Jesse’s “Collaborative Inquiries in Christian Theological Anthropology” grant ($4,700,000/2020-23). Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, (and Villanova, Notre Dame, and 12 other colleges).
Professor Ilia Delio, OSF Elected in 2023 to serve on the Human Origins Social Impact Committee, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Professor Massimo Faggioli Recipient of the 2023 « Francqui Chair 2023 », awarded by the Francqui Foundation (Belgium), with an invitation to hold a four-lecture course on synodality (in French) at the Francqui Chair at the Universitè Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), October-November 2023.
Sharon Gutkowski, doctoral candidate, was selected as a 2023 Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) Verbum Emerging Scholars Fellow.
Professor Christiane Lang Hearlson received, with Dr. Timothy Brunk, a four-year, $1.25 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. Their effort, “The Children, Liturgy and Ecology Project,” will explore the connection between Christian liturgical formation, love for the natural world and children’s lived experience. More.
Lang Hearlson was also the inaugural recipient of a new 2023 award, the Grace Adolphsen Brame Trust Faculty Award, which she earned for her work in teaching Christian spirituality courses and for her mentorship of graduate students.
Professor Jaisy Joseph received a 2025 Louisville Institute First Book Grant for Scholars of Color which awards sabbatical grants up to $40,000, funded by the Religion Division of Lilly Endowment.
Professor Vincent Lloyd was named a 2024 Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation which recognizes and awards monetary prizes to trail-blazing fellows across 52 fields. Dr. Lloyd's prize was awarded in the category of Intellectual & Cultural History. More.
Lloyd also received a grant from the Enlightened World Foundation, with Michael Moreland (Charles Widger School of Law, Villanova University).
Tekoa Robinson, doctoral student, was awarded a 2023 Villanova Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship and also won the 2023 Hong Kierkegaard Summer Research Fellowship.
Perdian Tumanan, doctoral student, was selected as one of the Roothbert Fund Fellows for the 2023-2024 academic year. Tumanan was also the recipient of the three best papers award submitted at the 2022 “Lumen et Vita” conference at Boston College in March 2022, for his paper “Reclaiming the Agency of Nature in Modern Technological Advancement and Ecological Apocalypse.”
Professor Héctor Varela Rios Named Raquel and Alfonso Martínez-Fonts Endowed Assistant Professor in Latin American Studies, September 2023.
Professor Stephanie Wong was selected for the 2024-25 non-residential Seminar Fellowship on Global Catholicism, sponsored by the St. Louis U. Center for Research on Global Catholicism. The research group, involving eight scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and areas of focus, will be developing projects related to the theme of "New Directions in Research on Global Catholicism: Mobilities, Migrations, Circulations." Wong's project will explore the development and transnational usage of Chinese ancestor veneration ceremonies in diasporic Chinese Catholic parishes.
Trevor Williams, doctoral candidate, was named the inaugural recipient of the Mann Endowed Fellowship for Research Promise to recognize doctoral student achievement, granted by the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Fall 2023. Williams also won first place in the Scripture & Theology Essay Competition held by the Wycliffe Centre for Scripture and Theology, and the Founder’s Circle Prize for first place from the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.
Theology in Dialogue podcast
Theology in Dialogue was produced by graduate students in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies featuring interviews with distinguished faculty and theologians.