Past Colloquiums

Jeronimo Ayesta is a Ph.D candidate at the Boston College Philosophy Department. He double-majored in Philosophy and Journalism at the University of Navarra. In 2022, he obtained a first-class honours Master of Arts in Film Studies at King’s College London. His areas of interest include hermeneutics, history of 20th Century Philosophy, Philosophy of religion, virtue ethics, and film-philosophy (with a focus on Éric Rohmer.) He has published four book reviews, two book chapters, and one peer-reviewed article, and has presented papers in more than twenty academic conferences

Suzanne Berne is the author of five novels: The Blue Window, The Dogs of Littlefield, The Ghost at the Table, A Perfect Arrangement, and A Crime in the Neighborhood, which won Great Britain’s Orange Prize, now The Women’s Prize.  She has written frequently for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and for numerous magazines.  For many years she taught creative writing, first at Harvard University, and then at Boston College and at the Ranier Writing Workshop.  Most recently, she was an Affiliate Scholar at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

Laura E. Captari, Ph.D., LP, is a research and counseling psychologist at Boston University’s Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute. In her roles as psychotherapist, researcher, supervisor, and teacher, she brings a holistic, depth-oriented approach to human experience, suffering, and healing, rooted in her initial career studying literature. Dr. Captari’s scholarly work explores developmental and relational impacts of trauma and loss across the lifespan, including religious harm and systemic oppression, with attention to resilience and flourishing. In particular, she illuminates how culturally-embedded strengths and virtues can help communities thrive. She is co-author of the forthcoming book, Systemic Treatment of Trauma-Impacted Families.

John D. Caputo is the Watson Professor Emeritus of Religion, Syracuse University, and Cook Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Villanova University. His newest book, A Radical God: Theopoetics, Phenomenology and the Future of Religion will appear from Columbia UP in the Spring 2025. His most recent books are What to Believe? (Columbia UP, 2023) and Specters of God: An Anatomy of the Apophatic Imagination (Indiana UP, 2022).

Kristen Case is the author of Henry David Thoreau’s Kalendar forthcoming this month from Milkweed editions and American Pragmatism and Poetic Practice (Camden House, 2011) as well as three books of poetry, most recently, Daphne, from Tupelo Press. She has co-edited several essay collections on American writers, including the forthcoming  Oxford Handbook of Henry David Thoreau (Oxford UP) and William James and Literary Studies (Cambridge UP). She is currently visiting professor in American Literature at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Executive Director of the Monson Seminar, a tuition-free residential course for Pell-eligible and first-generation college students. She is looking forward to teaching in the Formative Education and Lit Core programs at Boston College this spring.

Matthew Clemente is the Director of Research & Curriculum at Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics and an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Formative Education at Boston College. He is the Coeditor in Chief of the Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion and the Codirector of the Guestbook Project, a 501c3 non-profit. He is the Series Editor of two book series with Routledge/Taylor & Francis and has authored or edited over a dozen books.

Dr. Katherine Cooper Wyma has been teaching on the university level for almost twenty-five years. She earned her PhD in English at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, where her thesis focused on late medieval and early modern lay piety. Her current book project examines The Inklings’ ideas on theological anthropology and applies this framework to human behavior in digital spaces. She is an Associate Professor of English and the Honors College at Anderson University in South Carolina. Living in South Carolina with her two precocious, elementary-aged children and her book-loving husband, she enjoys being a part of her students’ lives.

Dr. Catherine Enwright is a PostDoctoral Research Associate for the David Jones Inscriptions Project through the Open University and a College Essay and Access Specialist at Boston Latin School. Her research interests include modernism and modern war literature, especially the literature of the First World War.

Gregory Floyd is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, where he also serves as Co-Convener of the Master of Arts program. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College. His research focuses on Lonergan, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion.

Peter Joseph Fritz is professor of Roman Catholic Systematic Theology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He teaches courses on Catholic theology, history of modern Christianity, capitalism, and theology and the visual arts. He is currently working on a book called Layers: A Christology of Non-Religious Contemporary Art.

Mark Freeman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ethics and Society at the College of the Holy Cross, is currently Senior Fellow at the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics at Boston College. Author of Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative; Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward; The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self; Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia; and, most recently, Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology, he is also Editor for the Oxford University Press series “Explorations in Narrative Psychology.”

David Goodman is Dean of the Woods College of Advancing Studies, the Executive Director of the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics, and serves on the faculty in three Boston College departments: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Philosophy, and Formative Education. Dr. Goodman has written over a dozen articles on continental philosophy, Jewish thought, social justice, and psychotherapy. Dr. Goodman currently serves as the Series Editor for the Psychology and the Other Book Series with Routledge. He has authored and edited over a dozen books including The Demanded Self: Levinasian Ethics and Identity in Psychology (with Duquesne University Press, 2012) and Psychology and the Other (with Mark Freeman and Oxford University Press, 2015). Dr. Goodman is also a licensed clinical psychologist and has a private practice in Boston, MA.

A. Taiga Guterres is Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies and a PhD student in Formative Education at Boston College. A practicing psychotherapist trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, his primary research interests include the philosophy of history, memory, and the formation of selfhood through narratives and aesthetics. As a Resident Minister on campus, he and his wife host weekly tea times for students, creating space for meaningful conversation, curiosity, and hospitality.

Amy Hodges Hamilton (Ph.D., Florida State University) is a Director of Undergraduate Core Curriculum and professor of English and Global Honors at Belmont University. Amy's research and teaching interests center on personal writing, memoir, trauma theory, reflective practice and pedagogy, and healing and the arts in community-based settings. Before joining the faculty at Belmont, Amy founded the Writing Studio at Vanderbilt University. Over the last ten years, she has served as the Senior Capstone Coordinator, as a member of the Bell Core Leadership and Assessment Team, and as the Faculty Confidential Advocate for the Title IX office.   She also served as Writer in Residence at the Seamus Heaney Center at Queens University Belfast in Fall 2019 and led the Belmont Global Honors program to Queens University Belfast in Spring 2023.  Amy received the Presidential Academic Achievement award for the 2018-2019 academic year and was awarded the 2023 Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award by the State of Tennessee.

William J. Hendel, JD is a teaching fellow and PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Boston College, who specializes in ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. He is the co-editor of misReading Plato (with Matthew Clemente and Bryan Cocchiara, Routledge, 2022).

Anthony Isacco, PhD is the Program Director, Professor, and Head of Clinical Research in the MS in Clinical Psychology Program at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. His professional interests are Catholic priests, seminarians, deacons, and women religious; psychological assessment; positive father involvement; men and masculinity; religious/spiritual integration in psychological research, practice, and education.

Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and formerly served as Professor at University College Dublin, the Sorbonne, and the University of Nice.

He is the author of 27 books of European philosophy and literature (including three novels and a volume of poetry) and has edited 23 more. His books have been translated into 21 languages. He has received graduate degrees from McGill University, The National University of Ireland, and The University of Paris, as well as several honorary degrees.

He was formerly a member of the Arts Council of Ireland, the Higher Education Authority of Ireland and chairman of the Irish School of Film at University College Dublin. He is currently a member of the Royal Irish Academy and received the Research Ireland Medal for distinguished international scholarship in 2025.

As a public intellectual he presented numerous series on culture and philosophy for Irish and British radio and television, and broadcast extensively on the European and international media (France Culture, ABC, CBC, NPR).

He is currently the international director of the Guestbook Project–Hosting the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality.

Emily Kent is a doctoral student in Formative Education at Boston College and a Doctoral Fellow for the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics. She also serves as the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs at the Woods College of Advancing Studies. Her research interests include how literature can help individuals better understand themselves, share their stories, and connect with others. Emily is passionate about the transformative effect education can have on both individuals and their communities, the potential of literature to be educative, and the impact of dialogue around literature. In her spare time, Emily is also an avid reader and an unofficial book collector.

James P. Madrox is the author of The Blood Cries Out for Vengeance (Angelico, 2023), The Philosopher King: A Novel (Cascade, 2024), and The Night the Barker Burned Down (Senex Press, 2025). He lives and writes in Dennis, Massachusetts.

Professor Murray teaches business law, business ethics, and alternative dispute resolution courses to undergraduate and graduate students on-campus in Nashville and at the Turney Center Prison. Currently, his research focuses on corporate governance, mergers & acquisitions, sports law, and social entrepreneurship law issues. His articles have been published in a variety of journals, including the American Business Law Journal and the Harvard Business Law Review. Prior to joining Belmont University’s faculty, Professor Murray clerked on the Delaware Court of Chancery and practiced corporate law at two global law firms: King & Spalding (Atlanta) and Weil, Gotshal & Manges (New York).

Adam Neder is Professor of Theology and Senior Fellow for Spiritual Formation at Belmont University. He is the author of Theology As a Way of Life: On Teaching and Learning the Christian Faith and Participation in Christ: An Entry Into Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. He is the editor of Teaching Theology: Reflections Personal and Theological, which will be published by Baylor University Press this year. Prior to arriving at Belmont, he was the Bruner-Welch Chair of Theology at Whitworth University, where he won numerous teaching awards.

MaryLou Pagano has over 35 years of fundraising experience, starting in the Archdiocese of New York’s Development Office. She has dedicated her career to supporting the Catholic Church’s mission through education, healthcare, and parish work. Since joining the Sheen Center in 2018, she has embraced its evangelization efforts and loved helping rebrand it as a place "Where Art and Spirituality Meet." MaryLou especially enjoys welcoming guests, and seeing them return. A favorite Sheen quote of hers: “Humility is the virtue by which we recognize ourselves as we truly are.” She lives in Westchester with her husband and three adult children.

Sofia Rietti is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Boston College. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Colgate University and an M.A. in Mental Health Counseling from Boston College. Her work sits at the intersection of philosophy and clinical practice, drawing on feminist philosophy, psychoanalysis, and phenomenological ethics to explore ethical and existential dimensions of mental health care. Through her research, she hopes to deepen philosophical understandings of suffering, embodiment, and relationality while bringing critical insights from therapeutic practice into conversation with contemporary philosophical thought. She is also involved with the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics and the Cura Psychologia Project.

• Rachel K. Teubner’s research is focused on the theological modes, methods and contributions of medieval and Renaissance literature, engaging historical sources and exploring issues of reception and intervention in contemporary theology. She is the author of several articles on religion in medieval and early modern literature and of the monograph Dante and the Practice of Humility: A Theological Commentary on the Divine Comedy (2023). She is currently developing a book project examining the relationship between genre, gender and theology in the lyric writings of early modern laywomen. 

Rachel was previously a Research Fellow in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (Australian Catholic University), Visiting Scholar in Medieval Studies at Harvard University, Affiliate Fellow at the Institute for Critical Inquiry (Berlin), and Wlassics Fellow in Dante Studies at the University of Virginia.

Carl Waitz, PsyD is an attending psychologist at Boston Children's Hospital and on faculty at Harvard Medical School. In addition to direct clinical care, Dr. Waitz also provides teaching and supervision to psychiatry and psychology trainees and has taught courses at Lesley University, Boston University, and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Waitz’s research includes the intersections of youth mental health, psychoanalytic practice and theory, and philosophy and religion. His published works include the books Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Eastern Orthodox Christian Anthropology in Dialogue and Youth Mental Health Crises and the Broken Social Link: A Freudian-Lacanian Perspective.

Christopher Yates teaches philosophy at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, the University of Virginia. He specializes in 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, especially phenomenology and aesthetics, and is the author of The Poetic Imagination in Heidegger and Schelling (Bloomsbury, 2013). His work has appeared in journals such as Research in Phenomenology, Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy Review, The European Journal of Philosophy, and The Hedgehog Review. He completed his Ph.D. in philosophy in 2011 at Boston College.