New Books in Catholic Studies

Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk and other sinners redeemed—the accounts of miracles performed by the Virgin Mary gathered and translated in The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France (Cornell UP, 20

For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners’ views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the wider world. But starting

English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism that extends back to medieval women’s monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authorit

Sinéad O'Connor, renowned for her angelic voice and activism, overcame a tumultuous upbringing to become a global protest singer and advocate for social justice. O'Connor achieved worldwide success as an angel-voiced, shaven-headed Irish singer of heartfelt songs, but she was far more than just a pop star - she was als

Generations of social scientists and historians have argued that the escape from empire and consequent fragmentation of power - across and within polities - was a necessary condition for the European development of the modern territorial state, modern representative democracy, and modern levels of prosperity. The Catho

Brian Harnetty’s recent record, Words and Silences, takes voice recordings made by the famed American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and sets them within Harnetty’s musical compositions. The meditative and revealing result has been lauded by critics in The Wire, MOJO, and Aquarium Drunkard.  In this episode, we share a Ph