Paolo L. Bernardini (Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study) won acclaim from the Times Literary Supplement for his most recent book, “Di dolore ostello”: pagine di storia italiana (Ronzani, 2022). Named one of the TLS “Books of the Year 2021,” the collection of 37 essays in Italian history ranges from the Middle Ages (including an essay on Dante’s theory of light as studied by Martin Kemp) up to the 20th century.
Katie Bugyis (University of Notre Dame) won the American Society of Church History’s 2021 Jane Dempsey Douglass Prize for her essay, “Women Priests at Barking Abbey in the Late Middle Ages,” published in Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages (D. S. Brewer, 2020), which she co-edited with Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and John Van Engen. The prize’s description says it honors the best essay on women’s role in the history of Christianity published in the prior two years.
Elizabeth Kay Chamberlain (Wayne State University) defended her Ph.D. dissertation, “Sisters of Social Justice: The Social Justice Activism of the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters,” on December 23, 2021.
Jessica Coblentz (Saint Mary’s College) published Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression (Liturgical Press, 2022).
Mary E. Dunning, O.P., recently published We Walk by Faith: The History of the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill 1950–2020 (AuthorHouse, 2021). The book continues the work begun by Sister Lucille Collins in her book The Vision Is Tremendous, which covered the history of the Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, Sparkill, New York, from its 1876 founding through the first half of the 20th century. We Walk by Faith narrates the dynamic changes that ensued beginning in the 1950s, including the ways that sisters embraced the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
Rev. Michael Engh, S.J., was appointed chancellor of Loyola Marymount University in October 2020. He is also co-chairing the Inclusive History and Images Project, which compiles resources for the university’s archives from historically underrepresented alumni of the university.
Rev. James L. Heft, S.M., (University of Southern California) contributed a chapter on leadership to Catholic Higher Education in Light of Catholic Social Thought (Paulist, forthcoming). Heft recently published The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (Oxford, 2021) and with Jan E. Stets co-edited the volume Empty Churches: Non-Affiliation in America (Oxford, 2021).
Anne Klejment (University of St. Thomas) is presently working on aspects of Dorothy Day’s spirituality, with a forthcoming article in U. S. Catholic Historian on Day’s socially engaged devotion to St. Joseph.
Rose Luminiello will publish “An Ubiquitous Presence: Women Religious in Migrant Communities, 1840–1969” in the upcoming issue of Studi Emigrazione. Research for the article developed in response to the agendas set by participants at the workshop “Globalizing Profession: Women Religious in the Anglosphere, 1840–1960,” held in November 2019 at Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway. The gathering brought together leaders in the field of women religious in Britain and Ireland.
Joseph G. Mannard (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) published the article “‘Wilhelmina Jones, Come Out!’: Public Reaction to the Reception of Sr. Stanislaus Jones into Georgetown Visitation Monastery, 1825–1826,” in the fall 2021 issue of U. S. Catholic Historian. He is currently researching and writing a biography with the working title Georgetown Nun to Washington Socialite: The Two Lives of Ann Gertrude Wightt, 1799–1867.
The New Jersey Catholic Historical Commission is celebrating its 35th anniversary of operation. More information about the organization, the latest edition of its newsletter, “The Recorder,” and other resources are available at blogs.shu.edu/njchc.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden collaborated with the Catholic Studies Department of Duquesne University, the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, and the National Institute for Newman Studies to co-sponsor the Preserving Our Heritage Summit: Catholic Archives in Western Pennsylvania. Held at Duquesne University on March 26, 2022, the regional conference covered topics including sustainability, accessibility, outreach, and digital preservation. The conference keynote speaker was Thomas Rzeznik, associate professor of history at Seton Hall University.
Jane Skjoldli (University of Stavanger) recently published World Youth Day: Religious Interaction at a Catholic Festival (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021). The book applies a new theoretical framework—religious interaction—to analyze the changing meaning of pilgrimage in Catholicism. Skjoldli spent part of 2015 as a guest researcher at the Cushwa Center.
Stephen A. Werner (Saint Louis University) published The Restless Flame, Daniel Lord, S.J.: Thinking Big in a Parochial World! (Press, Press, Pull, 2021). The book examines the life of the writer, radio broadcaster, and director of the national Sodality movement.
Maria Patricia Williams published “The Contribution of ‘A Sister of Notre Dame’ and the ‘Nun of Calabar’ to Montessori Education in Scotland, Nigeria and Beyond,” in the special Montessori edition of Rivista di Storia dell’Educazione.
Elizabethada Wright (University of Minnesota Duluth) collaborated with co-editor Christina R. Pinkston to publish Catholic Women’s Rhetoric in the United States: Ethos, the Patriarchy, and Feminist Resistance (Lexington, 2022). Building on various feminist theories of ethos, the authors in the collection explore how North American Catholic women from various periods, races, ethnicities, sexualities, and classes have used elements of their group’s positionality to develop ethē to make change. The women considered in the book range from the earliest Catholic sisters who came to the United States from Europe at the calling of male clergy only to be condemned by those same clergy for their work to women who held the Church hierarchy accountable for the clergy sexual abuse scandal as they redefined what it means to be a “good Catholic mother.”