Each year the Boisi Center provides an intellectual home for visiting scholars working on significant projects related to religion and public life. Visiting scholars participate in the intellectual life of the Center, which includes numerous public events, and may have an opportunity to present their own research as well. For more information about the visiting scholars program, or to apply for a position in the 2009-2010 academic year, please see the application information below.
VISITING SCHOLARS 2008-09
John H. Summers
John H. Summers earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester in 2006. He has taught at Harvard University and Columbia University, where he will be Lecturer on American Studies in 2008-2009. He is the editor of The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills (Oxford, 2008) and the author of Every Fury on Earth (Davies Group, 2008), a collection of his essays on history and politics. During his year at the Boisi Center, Summers will finish writing the manuscript An American Loneliness: C. Wright Mills and his Times.
Thia Cooper (Summer 2008)
Thia Cooper is Assistant Professor of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College, teaching in the area of Religion, Culture and Society. Her research interests include theology and liberation, theology and development, faith and practice in faith-based aid agencies, non-western Christianities, and religion in Latin America, particularly Brazil. Her background lies in Development Studies as well as Theology; she holkds an M.Th. and Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh-Scotland, an M.Sc. in Development Studies from SOAS in London, and an A.B. in International Relations from Brown University. Her first book, Controversies in Political Theology: Development or Liberation, was published with SCM Press in 2007. During Summer 2008 at the Boisi Center, she is working on a project exploring theologies of immigration. Her next work will develop these themes with particular reference to the Brazilian-American community.
For a list of past visiting scholars, click here.