An Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Model for Catholic Studies

This book offers a vision of an integrated Humanities curriculum, potentiated by the depth and diversity of perspectives that Catholic Studies contributes to both Catholic and secular universities. The result, inspired in various magisterial documents, is a more profound, relevant, and enduring college learning experience. It considers Catholic Studies as a response to the rich legacy of Vatican II, and its opening to contemporary culture, as it is expressed in Catholic education. It answers the dual call of the Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis (GE) for cooperation and collaboration among Catholic institutions of higher learning, and among faculty of the different scholarly disciplines. This book displays the interdisciplinary breadth and disciplinary depth of Catholic Studies, while providing a window into the practical insights gained by experts in research, program design, and teaching in a flourishing Catholic Studies program that has inspired the founding of the Seton Hall University core curriculum. Complemented by the contributions of Catholic Studies experts from outside Seton Hall, this book serves as a pedagogical model for researchers and educators to consider and emulate, nationally and internationally, an interdisciplinary Catholic Studies model as a way to recuperate theology; stop the siege of the humanities; and teach humanities in contact and communication with other disciplines, including STEM and other vocation-oriented fields. In this overall context, this book serves as a guide and a reference for new and established programs of Catholic Studies, nationally and internationally. It seeks to extend a conversation, in the style of a symposium, to campuses and cultural contexts in the United States and internationally.

Ines Angeli Murzaku is Professor of Religion at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, Director of Catholic Studies Program and the Founding Chair of the Department of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University, United States of America. She earned an S.E.O.L. as well as a research doctorate from the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and has held visiting positions at the Universities of Bologna and Calabria in Italy and University of Münster in Germany. She has won grants including the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant (SSHRC); and is a five times Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She has published extensively in scholarly outlets, contributing to numerous articles and at least eight books. She is presently working on a book entitled Mother Teresa’s Revolutionary Theology: Tenderness, Prayer, Suffering, Poverty, Service and Hope, under contract with Routledge.

Joseph P. Rice is Associate Professor of Philosophical Theology at Seton Hall University, United States of America. He earned his Ph.D. with distinction from the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and holds degrees from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (Rome), and the University of Notre Dame (Australia). His primary interests lie in investigating the philosophical thought of Karol Wojtyła, human ecology, marriage and family ethics, and the ethics of globalization. He has held research fellowships from Princeton Theological Seminary, Seton Hall University, the Catholic University of Lublin (Poland), the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Dr. Robert R. Banville Foundation, and the Earhart Foundation, and has served on the editorial staff of The Review of Metaphysics.