Alexandria Griffin, a Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University, received a 2016 research travel grant to utilize Notre Dame’s University Archives in probing “intersections of race, gender, and celibacy.” Her dissertation proposal aimed to illuminate the experiences of African American communities of Catholic priests and nuns—and of African American Shakers—during the 19th century. Heather Grennan Gary, the Cushwa Center’s communications and outreach specialist, interviewed Griffin about her on-campus research in May 2016. This inquiry, Griffin explained, could provide new insights into African American perceptions of particular, prescribed religious traditions.…

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Stephen Andes, an assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University and author of The Vatican and Catholic Activism in Mexico and Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940, received a Cushwa Center research travel grant to utilize Notre Dame’s University Archives in early October 2016. He supplemented his previous international research with unique insights into Mexican Catholic Action and U.S. perspectives to advance his work on a project titled “Catholic Vagabond: The Transnational Life and Times of Sofia del Valle.” His visit to Notre Dame enriched his biography of Sofia del Valle, whose life illuminates the early phases of Latin American Catholic women’s activism. Andes explores in her story various aspects of gender, race, lay Catholicism, Church history, and broader historical trends from a transnational perspective.…

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