Faculty Directory

Franklin T. Harkins

Professor of Historical Theology

Professor Ordinarius

Profile

Dr. Franklin T. Harkins is Professor of Historical Theology and Professor Ordinarius at the STM. A native North Carolinian, he studied Psychology and Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.S., 1996) before attending Duke Divinity School. After earning an M.Div. at Duke (1999), he completed a Ph.D. in medieval theology at the University of Notre Dame (2005), writing a dissertation on Hugh of St. Victor under the direction of the late Rabbi Michael A. Signer. From 2005 to 2007, Dr. Harkins held a Lilly Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship at Valparaiso University with a joint appointment in Christ College (the honors college) and the Theology Department. Returning to the East Coast in 2007, he served as Assistant Professor of Theology and Medieval Studies at Fordham University until 2013. In academic year 2010-11, Dr. Harkins was a Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, where he earned a Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies (2013) with a thesis entitled “An Introduction to Filiae magistri: Peter Lombard’s Sentences and Medieval Theological Education ‘on the Ground.’” Immediately prior to joining the Ecclesiastical Faculty at the STM, Dr. Harkins was Reader in Medieval Theology at Durham University in the northeast of England (2013-15). Currently Dr. Harkins is the President of the International Albertus Magnus Society and President of the Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. He is also co-editor of the Fordham Series in Medieval Studies (Fordham University Press) and serves on the editorial board of Victorine Texts in Translation (Brepols Publishers). Dr. Harkins has recently been elected to a four-year term on the National Board of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts.

SELECTED Courses

  • Introduction to Thomas Aquinas
  • Medieval Theology
  • Medieval Exegesis
  • Great Christian Thinkers: Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther
  • The Christology of Thomas Aquinas
  • The Book of Job in the Middle Ages

SELECTED Publications

Books

Thomas Aquinas: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2021.

St. Albert the Great, On Resurrection. Translated with introduction by Irven M. Resnick and Franklin T. Harkins. Fathers of the Church Mediaeval Continuation vol. 20. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020.

St. Albert the Great, On Job, volume 1 (on chs. 1-21). Translated with introduction by Franklin T. Harkins. Fathers of the Church Mediaeval Continuation vol. 19. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019.

The Discovery of Being & Thomas Aquinas: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, ed. Christopher M. Cullen, SJ and Franklin T. Harkins. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2019.

A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages, ed. Franklin T. Harkins and Aaron Canty, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition vol. 73.  Leiden: Brill, 2017.

Interpretation of Scripture: Practice, ed. Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, Victorine Texts in Translation vol. 6.  Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.

Interpretation of Scripture: Theory
, ed. Franklin T. Harkins and Frans van Liere, Victorine Texts in Translation vol. 3.  Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.

Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer
, ed. Franklin T. Harkins. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.

Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor
.  Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2009.

Selected Appointments & Awards

  • Reader in Medieval Theology, Durham University, UK, 2013-15
  • Mellon Fellowship, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto, 2010-11
  • Lilly Postdoctoral Fellowship, Valparaiso University, 2005-07
  • North American Patristics Society Best First Article Prize, for “Nuancing Augustine’s Hermeneutical Jew: Allegory and Actual Jews in the Bishop’s Sermons,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 36 (2005) 41-64

Editorial Positions

Co-editor of Fordham Series in Medieval Studies, Fordham University Press