Faculty Updates in the Theology Department

Although COVID created many obstacles in education, faculty managed to have a productive year of scholarship and community engagement.

Mara Adams presented a paper on an ethic of care for vulnerable and marginalized workers in light of the COVID-19 pandemic at the Public Health Conference of Iowa in April. In June, Dr. Adams will present a paper at the Catholic Theological Society annual meeting that investigates the interactions and relationships between Lakota peoples and Jesuits, historically and to the present.

Matthew Coomber's article "An Interpretive Model of Privileged Contempt: Understanding Disdain Toward Those of Lower Status, from Ancient Israel to the New American Politics," was published by the Journal of Religion and Society in February 2021, and his chapter "Poverty and Social Justice in Micah" was published in the Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics.

Fr. Bud Grant co-edited and contributed essays to two books on Saint Ambrose of Milan, "Ambrose of Milan and Community Formation in Late Antiquity" with Cambridge Scholars Press and "Ambrose of Milan's Misericordia" with Oxford University Press.

Ella Johnson's article "Critical Reflection Ensuing from Traumatic Events and Ideology Critique," was featured in the American Academy of Religion's Spotlight on Teaching series, Trauma-Informed Pedagogies in the Religious Studies Classroom.

Micah Kiel was appointed as president of the board for Café on Vine, an organization that provides free meals 265 days a year to the needy in the Quad Cities community.

Lisa Powell's article "Exhibitionary Commerce, The Construction of Whiteness, and the Theological Sideshow," will published by Theology Today in Summer 2021. Her article on disability and the resurrection of the body is forthcoming in the Spring/Summer issue of the Journal for the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Powell also presented research from her current book project at the American Academy of Religion "Disability and Religious Studies" group in November 2020.