Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, English (Arts and Sciences)

This study documents patterns of description of Roman Catholic characters, beliefs, cultural attitudes, dispositions, doctrines, worship and ceremonial rites, and visual and material culture in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century British prose fiction. From Daniel Defoe's Religious Courtship (1722) to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814), British prose fiction wrestles with the problem of religious difference between Anglo-Protestants and a defamiliarized Catholic other. Delineating Roman Catholicism the spatial-geographical as well as timebound “constitutive outside” of Protestant Great Britain, numerous British novels portray Catholics and Catholic religion as shadows of a dark age past from which Britain itself has emerged, enlightened and whole. And yet certain features of these fictions belie a clean, easy separation and indeed problematize Anglo-Protestant identity itself. Describing in fetishistic detail Catholicism's visual and material culture, to emphasize its strangeness and outlandishness to British observers, British writers draw attention to Protestant Britain's own lack of internal religious unity and coherence, which is often symbolized by the novel's inability to render a rival Protestant religious imaginary on the page. I argue that the stark contrast between the visible and embodied evidence of Roman Catholic religion and an Anglo-Protestant religious imaginary that both contains and resists Catholic art and artifice, is a constant source of unspoken disquiet and tension in the British novel. British writers of the eighteenth-century wrestle with the question or what Britons have lost or gained in shedding the visual and material culture of Catholicism for comparatively immaterial and rational constructions of faith. In consequence, however, a Catholic religious imaginary and sacramental universe—part of England's religious heritage from the Catholic Middle Ages—is preserved in the realm of the symbolic, and becomes a challenge to b (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Linda Zionkowski (Committee Chair); Michele Clouse (Committee Member); Nicole Reynolds (Committee Member); Joseph McLaughlin (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; History; Literature; Religion; Religious Education; Religious History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1938, English

Committee: Rea McCain (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature

BA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

For centuries, Dante's Commedia has inspired artists and musicians alike with its dense themes of redemption, atonement, religious ecstasy and reconciliation. His immense three-volume work is rife with musical metaphors and linguistic musicality qualifying it as a more than a poem: something that many in the field of Dante Studies term a masterpiece of an all-encompassing artistic nature. In this thesis, I explore the Commedia in terms of its musical construction, examining the specific choices by a linguistic genius to instruct his listeners of life, language and love through song.

Committee: Kristin Stasiowski Phd (Advisor); Kenneth Bindas Phd (Committee Chair); Jay White Phd (Committee Member); Stephanie Siciarz (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Middle Ages; Music; Philosophy; Religious History

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2014, Theological Studies

Saint Catherine of Siena wrote one of the most theologically orthodox works of mysticism, Dialogue on Divine Providence. Unlike other mystics of the later middle ages, Catherine's Dialogue provided a highly doctrinal theology written in her own vernacular language. Catherine's mystical theology demonstrates influence of several prominent schools of theological thought, most notably the moral theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Like Aquinas, Catherine emphasizes the habituation and practice of the virtues, above all the virtue of charity. Aquinas and Catherine both understood charity as directed towards the two same ends - God and neighbor for God's sake - and as manifesting itself through outward spiritual and corporeal practices. Catherine, however, wrote with a very particular audience in mind - the increasingly literate laity. As demonstrated in her own letters, Catherine understood her writing for a lay audience as spiritual instruction and therefore writing served as an act of charity for her.

Committee: Sandra Yocum Ph.D (Advisor); William Portier Ph.D (Committee Member); William Johnston Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Regional Studies; Religious History; Spirituality; Theology

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2009, Theological Studies

This thesis explores the relationship between art and theology, arguing that literature plays a central role in the discipline. John Paul II gives voice to the importance of the arts in the life of the Church, and the influence of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel on Dorothy Day pays witness to the pope's claim. Nicholas Boyle's approach to literature as the “site” of theology is used to examine the imagery and discourse in The Brothers Karamazov as reflective of the Gospel story. Stanley Hauerwas' approach to narrative theology is then applied to contextualize the novel in Dorothy's life. Not only do encounters with Karamazov characters help guide her path to conversion, but Dostoevsky's Incarnational vision of the Church takes shape in Dorothy's daily practices and the formation of the Catholic Worker community. This exploration concludes with a look into the life and work of Fritz Eichenberg, who illustrated Dostoevsky's novels as well as the Catholic Worker newspaper. Such a portrait enriches one's understanding of Dostoevsky's influence on Day and reaffirms John Paul's claim that art is essential to the renewal of the Church.

Committee: Kelly Johnson S (Advisor) Subjects: Theology