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The University of Notre Dame has long traditions in the research and teaching of Dante and is considered one of the leading centers in the world for the study of the great Catholic poet. As we approach the 700th anniversary of his death, Dante’s work still speaks powerfully, says Ted Cachey, professor of Italian and the Ravarino Family Director of Italian and Dante Studies. “I am often asked how Dante is relevant for today,” he said. “The answer is very simple: Dante confronted a world that was culturally, politically, and spiritually in profound crisis.” 

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In his newest research, The Contradictory Christ, Notre Dame philosopher Jc Beall argues that instead of trying to get around the apparent contradiction of the incarnation, Christian thinkers should accept what many thinkers have long charged: at the very crux of the Christian theory lies a contradiction.

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Notre Dame theologians from the World Religions World Church program will embark on a virtual teaching series examining the Catholic Church in a global religion context starting Jan. 26 and running through October. This program, hosted by ThinkND, will enable learners to enrich their understanding of the Church’s relationship with believers of other faiths around the world. Gabriel Reynolds, the Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology, will lead the first four sessions that delve into the overlap between the Bible and the Quran, the historical relationship between the Church and Islam, and the theological tensions and harmonies between believers in both traditions.

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While early modern artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi has been principally known for his drawings and etchings of ancient Rome, new research from Heather Hyde Minor, a Notre Dame professor of art history, reinterprets Piranesi’s artistic oeuvre by flipping the works over and reading what is written on the backs. Minor’s Piranesi Unbound, examines nearly 200 of Piranesi’s engravings and drawings. The research, recuperative in method, serves as a biography of Piranesi’s books, bringing text and image together to reveal a learned mind alive with biting wit and unflinching big-picture questions.

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As with so much of life during the coronavirus pandemic, Notre Dame Stadium is operating under "business as unusual" — with choir rehearsals taking place in the Leahy Gate, near the south endzone. “Before now, the gate had been just a passageway and the only way to get from the first floor of O’Neill to other buildings,” said Mark Doerries, director of graduate studies and head of the graduate choral conducting program for Sacred Music at Notre Dame. “But now it holds rehearsals, classes and study space — a living incubator of music and teaching.”

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With the 2020 presidential election on the near horizon, sociologist Kraig Beyerlein discusses what he and his co-researcher learned about the political engagement of U.S. congregations — including what surprised him most — and how that may impact results on Nov. 3.

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Ernest Morrell, a professor of Africana studies and English, the Coyle Professor in Literacy Education, and director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame, has collaborated with fellow subject experts to create the first capstone course on the African diaspora for AP Seminar high school teachers and students.

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In new research, Rev. Thomas Blantz, C.S.C., Notre Dame professor emeritus of history, presents the story of America’s premier Catholic university from its inception as a French-founded boys’ school in 1842 to its status as an acclaimed undergraduate and international research institution of the 21st century.

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Notre Dame researchers Jon Coleman, professor of history, and Emily Wang, assistant professor of Russian, have been named fellows in the 2020 cohort of American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowships honor scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, and Coleman and Wang were among 81 winners selected from nearly 1,200 applicants.

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Gabriel Said Reynolds, professor of Islamic studies and theology at Notre Dame, has been appointed by Pope Francis as consultor to the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, which is part of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The appointment lasts five years, and the commission meets annually in Rome to debrief and advise on the Church’s relations with Muslims.

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Nicole Woods, assistant professor of art history at the University of Notre Dame, has been named a 2019 recipient of an Arts Writers Grant. This award is among the highest honors an art historian or critic can receive, and Woods is one of 19 recipients from a candidate pool of more than 800. Woods is an expert in Euro-American neo-avant-gardes, performance and conceptual art, intersectional feminism and taste cultures. Her current research includes a consideration of the widespread use of food as an object of consumption and a form of political critique in the work of several late-20th-century artists.

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Michael “Mic” Detlefsen, the McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and editor of the Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, died Monday (Oct. 21). He was 70.

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Therese Cory is one of 50 total members and one of two women — the third in the academy’s history — to be so honored.

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In his newest research, Darren Dochuk, associate professor of history at Notre Dame, chronicles North America’s age of oil — in particular, crude’s inseparable relationship to Christianity. He finds that since the Civil War-era discovery of oil, Americans have consistently claimed black gold as a spiritual blessing, a sacred burden and an emblem of national identity and mission in the world.

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Notre Dame has entered into an agreement to acquire the G.K. Chesterton Library, which includes books, personal effects, art and other items related to the life of this renowned 20th-century English Catholic writer, orator, apologist and provocateur.

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Two historians and one theologian are among 81 fellows named from more than 1,100 applicants in the 2019 award cycle. ACLS awardees are selected for excellence in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, and the fellowships support six to 12 months of full-time research and writing. Notre Dame winners include Yury P. Avvakumov, associate professor of theology; Katie Jarvis, assistant professor of history; and Emily Remus, assistant professor of history.

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In new research, Kathleen Sprows Cummings — University of Notre Dame associate professor of American studies and director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism — chronicles how canonization, or the intricate process of naming someone a saint, prompted a minority religious group to define, defend and celebrate its American identity. Her book, A Saint of Our Own: How the Quest for a Holy Hero Helped Catholics Become American, is the first study of multiple causes for canonization within a United States context. 

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Gary Gutting, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, New York Times contributor and co-founding editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, died Friday (Jan. 18). He was 76.

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Three University of Notre Dame faculty members — Rebecca Tinio McKenna, Sarah McKibben, and Vincent Phillip Muñoz — have been offered fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the 2018 award cycle. With 65 total awards, scholars in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters have received more NEH fellowships any other private university in the United States since 1999. 

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Assistant professor Kim Rollings’ research examines how built and natural environments impact mental and physical health. In collaboration with Nancy Wells, professor of design and environmental analysis at Cornell University, she recently developed an assessment tool that scores elementary school cafeteria environments, suggesting improvements that promote healthier eating.

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The launch will take place during “Higher Powers,” a three-day Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture conference examining the proper relationship between God, the human person, and the state.

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Babies whose mothers experience interpersonal violence during pregnancy are more likely to exhibit aggression and defiance toward their mothers in toddlerhood, according to new research by Laura Miller-Graff, assistant professor of psychology and peace studies, and Jennifer Burke Lefever, managing director of the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families.

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Gabriel Said Reynolds — University of Notre Dame professor of Islamic studies and theology — shows in his newest publication, The Qur’an & the Bible: Text and Commentary, that the connections between the sacred texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism run deep.

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In 2018 the University will launch several initiatives connected to the work of this novelist, critic of Communism, and 1970 Nobel laureate for literature. The plans include the acquisition and first English translations of Solzhenitsyn works, as well as major academic conferences and postdoctoral fellowships that will connect researchers from around the world to the manuscript and print collections held by the Hesburgh Libraries — which are among the most extensive holdings in the U.S. related to the life and work of Solzhenitsyn.  

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Tatiana Botero, associate teaching professor of Spanish at the University of Notre Dame, has been named 2018 Indiana teacher of the year for university-level instruction by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP).

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Kriag Beyerlein’s study, co-authored with Notre Dame graduate student Peter Ryan, compares the 2017 Women’s March Chicago with historical examples of religiously motivated progressive social activism and is now published in Sociology of Religion.

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Robert Audi, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected to the 2018 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is the seventh living Notre Dame philosophy faculty member to be honored and is to be inducted at an October ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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The conference titled “The Whole is Greater than its Parts: Christian Unity and Interreligious Encounter Today” will be held at the University’s Rome Global Gateway Jan. 8-10. This is the second such international gathering hosted by Notre Dame’s World Religions World Church program.

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Working to advance the mission of the Church in service of development, peace, and disarmament, attendees will address such topics as the July 2017 United Nations treaty banning nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons and the environment, and the role of Church and civil society in promoting disarmament. The speakers and panelists include Nobel Prize winners, senior diplomats, and leaders from the United Nations and NATO, as well as academic experts and religious leaders.

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Nicholas J. Teh, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, along with London School of Economics colleague Bryan W. Roberts, was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study the nature of observables.

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