Subject Specialization:

Theology & Religious Studies; Humanities & Classical Studies



Bio:

My passion for libraries began in the small-town public library of my youth, The Ulysses Philomathic Society library in Trumansburg, N.Y. I have lived in Abington, PA for most of my adult life. In fact, my wife and I met in art class at Abington High School, and although we moved around a bit, we eventually settled back in Southeastern PA to raise our family. My wife and I are converts to Catholicism and we received our confirmation in Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada. I came to Villanova University as a librarian in 1998. Currently I am the Associate Director for Research Services and Scholarly Engagement. I was a regular adjunct to the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova from 2000 to 2016. Since 2016, I have been an instructor in the Augustine and Culture Seminar Program.

I love books, mid-twentieth century movies, theatre, classical music and slow food.

Some thinkers and subjects that fascinate me:
»    Homer, Aeschylus, Plato and ancient Greek culture
»    Cicero, Virgil, Ovid and ancient Roman culture
»    Plotinus and Neoplatonist philosophy
»    Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and the Early Church fathers
»    Nicene-Constantinopolitan Trinitarianism and Chalcedonian Christology
»    Augustine of Hippo and the Augustinian tradition
»    Classical and Medieval architecture
»    G. Palestrina, C. Monteverdi and Italian Renaissance music
»    Shakespeare, Molière and early modern drama
»    Post-Reformation Lutheran controversies
»    G. F. Handel, F. J. Hadyn, R. Wagner and German classical music
»    J. W. v. Goethe, F. v. Shiller, C. M. v. Weber and German Romanticism
»    Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and 19th-century women writers
»    J. H. Newman and the Oxford Movement
»    A. Chekhov, B. Brecht and modern dramaturgy
»    T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers and 20th-century Anglo-Catholic writers
»    G. K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh and modern British Roman Catholic writers
»    Martin Heidegger and fundamental ontology
»    Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt and 20th-century women philosophers
»    Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty and 20th-century Southern women writers
»    J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and 20th-century otherworldly literature
»    Hans Urs von Balthasar and Ressourcement theology
»    John Paul II and theological personalism
»    Roman and Byzantine Catholicism

Contact Information:

Location: Room 230

610-519-6371

Falvey Library, Villanova University
800 Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA, 19085



Education:

Degrees:
•    B.A., Liberal Arts (Focus: Classical Studies & Political Science), Gettysburg C., Gettysburg, PA, 1990.
•    M.A., Religion (Focus: Historical Theology & Church History), LTSS, Columbia, S.C., 1995.
•    M.S., Library and Information Science (Focus: Academic Librarianship & Library Management), Drexel U., Phila., PA, 1996.

Undergraduate research interests:
›    mystery religion of Samothrace
›    late-republican and early-imperial Roman civilization
›    ancient political philosophy
›    medieval and military history
›    modern American government
›    Anglo-American turn-of-the-century society
(British Victorian Age/Edwardian Era and
American Gilded Age/Progressive Era
sociopolitical history)

Graduate research interests:
›    classical Christology, ecclesiology, Mariology and liturgical theology
›    narrative, canonical, and cultural-linguistic approaches of postliberal theology
›    Alexandrian, Cappadocian and Augustinian theology
›    Lutheran confessionalism and Protestant evangelical-catholicism
›    Eastern Orthodox neo-patristic synthesis and Catholic communio movement