Current Dissertatators:

The following students have successfully passed their candidacy exams and are working on their dissertations. Their work represents the diversity of research interests in the theology department.

 

Dissertation Field:

___________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity


Matthew Bates
Paul and the Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Kerygma: Paul's Use of Scripture as Received, Transformed, and Paralleled in the Earliest Church
Advisor: David Aune

Brandon Bruning
Constructing the Tabernacle, Constructing the Tabernacle Account: Textural Reconstruction and Literary-Historical Analysis of the Hebrew Text Underlying OG Exodus 34-40
Advisor: Eugene Ulrich

Jaecheon Cho
PHILOROMAIOS-Herod Agrippa II in Josephus and the Acts of Apostles
Advisor: Greg Sterling

David George
Jesus' Lack of Emotion in Luke: The Lucan Redactions in Light of the Hellenistic Philosophers
Advisor: Gregory Sterling

Bradley Gregory
The Theological Relationship Between Poverty and Charity in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Its Biblical Roots and Second Temple Context
Advisor: Gary Anderson

Brad Milunski, O.F.M. Conv.
Covenant Making at Sinai: Its Textual Reception in Early Judaism
Advisor: James VanderKam

Daniel O'Hare
"Have You Seen, Son of Man": Theological Themes in LLX Ezekiel 40-48
Advisor: Gary Anderson

Christina Brinks Rae
The Thematic and Verbal Connections Between Isaiah 40-55 and Job
Advisor: James VanderKam

Ardea Russo
Behind the Heavenly Door: Earthly Liturgy and Heavenly Worship in the Apocalypse of John
Advisor: David Aune

Daniel Smith
“The Rhetorical Function of Interrupted Speeches in Luke-Acts”
Advisor: David Aune
For more information: c.v.

Joshua Yoder
Roman governors in the Apologetic of Luke-Acts
Advisor: Mary Rose D'Angelo

 

 

History of Christianity


Lee Blackburn
“I Will Behold the Wonder of Your Law”:  Cyril of Alexandria on Mosaic cult and Aaronic Priesthood
Advisor: Brian Daley

Catherine Cavadini
The Commerce of Charity: A Study of Thomas the  Cistercian's Commentary on the Song of Songs
Advisor: Ann Astell

Shawn Colberg
"Be Glad and Rejoice for Your Reward is Very Great in Heaven:" Catholic Views of "Reward" in Medieval and Reformation Theology
Advisor: Joseph Wawrykow

Amy Donaldson
Explicit references to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers
Advisor: Brian Daley

Doug Finn
God's Gift of Love: Augustine's Doctrine of the Holy Spirit vis- a-vis the Hegelian Pneumatological Paradigm
Advisor: Cyril O'Regan

Wes Foreman
Christian Hexameral Commentary
Advisor: Brian Daley

Andrew Hofer, OP
Herald of the Word: Gregory of Nazianzus Evoking Christ
Advisor: Brian Daley

David Kneip
The Spirit, the Bible, and the Church: Neglected Aspects of Cyril of Alexandria's Pneumatology
Advisor: Brian Daley

Daria Lucas
The Grace of the Holy Spirit, the Virtue of Charity, and the Gift of Wisdom: Pneumatology and Divinization in Aquinas' Summa Theologiae
Advisor: Joseph Wawrykow

Sara Monica Mata
A Study of the Relationship Between Literal and figurative Exegeses in the Words of Augustine on Genesis
Advisor: John Cavadini

Damon McGraw
John Henry Newman: Apocalyptic Theologian
Advisor: Cyril O'Regan

 

 

Liturgical Studies


Kimberly Belcher
Sacramental Perichoresis: The Trinitarian Structure of the Reformed Roman Rite of Infant Baptism
Advisor: Nathan Mitchell
for more information: c.v.

Katharine Harmon
"There Were Also Many Women There”: Roman Catholic Women in the Classical Liturgical Movement in the United States
Advisor: Nathan Mitchell

Mary Margaret Hoden
A Visible Manifestation of the Invisible: The Relationship of the Architecture of Salisbury Cathedral and the Liturgy of the Sarum Use
Advisor: Michael Driscoll

Anne McGowan
In Search of the Spirit: The Epiclesis in Early Eucharistic Praying and Contemporary Liturgical Reforms
Advisor: Mawell Johnson

Vitalijs Permjakovs
"And Make it the Place Where Your Glory Dwells": Origins and Evolution of the Byzantine Rite of the Consecration of Churches
Advisor: Max Johnson

Sue Rozeboom
Concipiat Fides, Spiritum Vere Unire Quae Locis Disiuncta Sunt: The Derivation of John Calvin's Understanding of the Role of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
Advisor: Nathan Mitchell

Melanie Ross
Liturgical Ecclesiology from a Free Church Perspective:  Learning from the Ground Up
Advisor: Nathan Mitchell

Nicholas Russo
The Origins of Lent
Advisor: Maxwell Johnson

Joel Schmidt
"Present in the Word": Human Imagination and the  Sacramentality of Preaching
Advisors: Nathan Mitchell and M. Catherine Hilkert

 

Moral Theology


Thomas Bushlack
Justice in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas: Rediscovering Civic Virtue
Director: Jean Porter
for further information: c.v.

Patrick Clark
"For the Greater Glory: Courage, Death and Virtue in Aquinas and His Philosophical Inheritance"
Advisor: Jean Porter
for further information: c.v.

Anselma Dolcich-Ashley
Ethics and the Crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church
Advisor: Jean Porter

James Helmer
The Rights of Peoples?: A Christian Theological Analysis of Cultural Rights
Advisor: Jean Porter

Mary Hirschfeld
Virtuous Consumption in a Dynamic Economy: A  Thomistic Engagement with Neoclassical Economics
Advisor: Jean Porter

Geoffrey Keating
The Modernist Temptation: John Courtney Murray and Benedict VXI on Religion and Politics
Co-advisors: Gerald McKenny and Cyril O’Regan

Michael Mawson
The Reality of Christ in the World: Bonhoeffer, Hegel and the Ethical Life
Advisor: Gerald McKenny

Deonna Neal
Be Who You Are: Karl Barth's Ethics of Creation
Advisor: Gerald McKenny

 

 

Systematic Theology

 

Steven Battin
The Praxis of Unity: A Postcolonial Perspective on the Unity of the Church
Advisor: Cyril O'Regan

Rhodora Beaton
The Sacramentality of words in Roman Catholic Theology since Vatican II: Insights from Karl Rahner and Louis-Marie Chauvet
Advisor: Mary Catherine Hilkert

Kristin Brantman Colberg
Toward a Theology of Local Church: Examining the Relationship between Catholicity and Locality at Vatican II and its Significance for Contemporary Theology
Advisor: Robert Krieg

Krista Duttenhaver
Christian Platonism as a Radical Politics: Simone Weil and the Mystical-Political
Advisor: Cyril O'Regan
for further information: c.v.

Matthew Eggemeier
"Prophetic Apophasis: Emmanuel Levinas and Johann Baptist Metz on Praxis, Subjectivity, and Theodicy"
Advisor: J. Matthew Ashley

Peter Joseph Fritz
Sublime Apprehensions: A Catholic, Rahnerian Construction
Advisor: Cyril O'Regan
for further information: c.v.

Harold Ernst
The Providence of God and the Passion of Christ: Divine Providence in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
Advisor: Joseph Wawrykow & Cyril O'Regan

Anthony Lee
From Sacrament of Salvation to Sign that Interrupts: The Evolution in Edward Shillebeeckx's Theology of the Relationship between the Church and the World
Advisor: M. Catherine Hilkert

Candace McLean
“Do This In Memory of Me”: The Genealogy and Theological Appropriation of Memory in the Work of Johann Baptist Metz
Advisor: Matthew Ashley

Sarah Morice-Brubaker
Place of the Spirit: A Trinitarian Theology of Location
Advisors: Gerald McKenny & Cyril O'Regan

Emily Stetler
Poured Out Like an Offering: Toward an Anthropology of Kenosis
Advisors: Lawrence Cunningham and Randall Zachman

John Thiede
The Concept of Martyrdom in the Christology of Jon Sobrino
Advisor: Matthew Ashley

Ernesto Valiente
Truth, Justic, and Forgiveness: Reconcilation in the Christology of Jon Sobrino
Advisor: Matthew Ashley